78, Chiltern Street

No. 78 Chiltern Street is a former school for the Portman Chapel, now converted into flats, workrooms, and a library. It was built in 1859 by Christopher Eales, with minor alterations made in the 1880s. The building is constructed of red brick, featuring concrete floors and iron girders that span the ceilings, topped with a slate roof. The design was carefully planned to maximize separation between girls and boys on a small site.

Three-storey houses for the schoolmaster and mistress, now flats, face the street and are accessed through archways: the left archway leads to the boys' entrance, which has an open tiled stairwell leading to the schoolroom on the second floor; the right archway leads to a yard that previously had an open colonnade, which was infilled by the Henson brothers in the 1880s. Classrooms are located at the rear and above the courtyard, arranged in an L-shape over four storeys, with separate floors designated for infants, girls, and boys in ascending order. The top floor features an assembly hall shared by all the children, boasting a timber kingpost and hammerbeam roof of unusually chunky construction.

This building is noted as an early surviving example of a church school in a city center, effectively maximizing accommodation on a small site through features that were later adopted by the London School Board.