St Olave's Grammar School, including headmaster’s house; groundsman’s house; fives and squash court building; art and craft block; brick, concrete and timber boundary treatments to the south and east sides of the site and original areas of hard landscaping

St Olave's Grammar School was built in 1966–1967 to designs by Robert Matthew Johnson-Marshall and Partners, with Maurice Lee as partner in charge. The listing includes the main school buildings, the headmaster's house, groundsman's house, fives and squash court building, art and craft block, and original brick, concrete and timber boundary treatments to the south and east sides of the site, along with original hard landscaping.

Materials and Construction

The building is constructed of concrete and red brick. Windows were originally of dark-painted timber with pivoting top-lights picked out in white, though some have been replaced with uPVC.

Plan and Layout

The school is predominantly flat-roofed with two storeys in the main teaching blocks, incorporating double-height elements including the Great Hall, former swimming pool (now the sports hall as of 2017), and gymnasium. A principal circulation spine runs south-west to north-east.

West of this spine are three successive courts: the enclosed, cloistered First Court, and the semi-enclosed Second and Third Courts. These courts are framed mainly by classroom blocks and former science laboratories (now regular classrooms). Where they were originally open to the west (Second Court) and west and north (Third Court), they are now more tightly enclosed by newer blocks and extensions which are excluded from listing.

East of the plan are the headmaster's office and staff rooms, opening onto a small enclosed garden. The attached headmaster's house occupies this corner—a flat-roofed courtyard bungalow echoing the school's architecture, with its own private enclosed garden and garage. Further north, the kitchen and boiler house, Great Hall and former swimming pool frame the Hall Court, now partly occupied by two prefabricated classrooms. North and west of the former swimming pool is the gymnasium and changing room block.

The main entrance is at the south end of the circulation spine, beneath the raised pentagonal, chapter house-like chapel. It leads through to the cloistered walk on the east side of the First Court and into a galleried foyer giving access to the Great Hall. The first-floor library on the east side of the First Court and the gallery of the Great Hall can be reached from the foyer via a spiral stair. An off-set corridor continues on the north-south axis from the foyer, past the Great Hall (east) and Small Hall (west) to the original science block which divides the Second and Third Courts. A cross-axial corridor links the former science block with the Hall Court to the east via a short external stretch of covered walkway.

Detached elements of the original school include the single-storey art and craft block on the edge of the Third Court, which originally had a central open courtyard now enclosed by a glazed roof; the building has been extended by half its width to the north. North of the art and craft block is the building containing the squash and fives courts—single-storey with squash courts to the four corners and two pairs of fives courts across the centre beneath a butterfly roof. At the far south end of the site is the small groundsman's bungalow and garage, facing into its own private enclosed garden.

Exterior

The building presents a pared-down rectilinear expression across its expansive plan. Sitting on a shuttered concrete plinth, its aesthetic is dominated by white horizontal bands of concrete edge beams marking the storey heights, and red brick panels irregularly interspersed with full-height panels of glazing held in timber joinery, breaking the elevations down vertically. The asymmetric arrangement reflects the internal room planning. Within the First Court the elevations are more formal, with double-height, closely-spaced brick piers, whereas the staff room looking onto a small private garden has a more intimate domestic character. The near-detached chapel and the Great Hall provide foci for greater compositional and geometric drama.

The chapel is sited in front of and over the main entrance, linked to the building's front elevation by a glazed first-floor link. Pentagonal in plan, it is raised on piers which hug the corners in the manner of angled buttresses, separating central panels of blind brick from full-height dalle de verre traceried windows at the angles. The copper-clad roof has a lantern and spire. The area beneath the chapel is paved in brick.

The hall is a double-height space with its principal external elevation to the east, lit principally from above by a large square lantern with pyramidal copper-covered roof. This feature, like the chapel roof, is glimpsed from various points around the building's intricate footprint, along with its carefully composed north and south elevations.

Hard Landscaping and Boundary Treatments

Various areas of hard landscaping survive. The largest is the concrete and brick paving and cast concrete benches of the First Court, and the Hall Court which includes concrete paving, planters and retaining walls-cum-benches. Smaller areas include that to the west of the changing room block (concrete paving, retaining walls and steps) and the timber and steel canopy over the walkway between the former science block and Hall Court.

Original boundary treatments include stretches of red brick wall which steps in and out in vertical panels, surrounding the headmaster's garden, staff garden and part of the service yard. Elsewhere the service yard is surrounded by a concrete wall, and the groundsman's house is partially surrounded by a tall, dark-stained, horizontally boarded fence.

Interior

Internally, the majority of the school is simple but well-detailed with consistent use of hardwood joinery and glazed timber screens to share light between corridor and classroom spaces. Walls in shared areas are a mixture of bare red brick and plaster, with stairwells being top-lit with skylights. Boarded hardwood ceilings are used selectively and on the soffits of the cloisters, linking internal and external space.

Great Hall

A principal interior of note is the Great Hall, approximately 65 feet square with a gallery on all four sides. The ceiling is lined in timber and has a large square lantern with an inverted pyramid in the centre directing light down into the space. The hall functions as assembly hall, dining room, theatre and concert hall and was planned to work flexibly, allowing proscenium, apron or arena stage arrangements. The central part of the floor can be lowered to create an orchestra pit. The gallery houses an organ of 1900 brought from the previous school. There is also a fine bronze and polished stone wall-mounted war memorial to the First and Second World Wars.

Chapel

The chapel has a vaulted ceiling lined in timber and walls of exposed brick, with some fixed bench seating to the sides. The main foci are five dalle de verre windows by Susan Ashworth, a student at the Royal College of Art under the tutelage of Lawrence Lee. The windows represent the triumph of the Christian spirit (yellow) over the four elements of the material world: earth (green), air (blue), fire (red) and water (white). The altar is moveable and can be placed under the yellow window or in the centre of the chapel according to liturgical preference.

Fives Courts Building

The block containing the fives courts is another particularly strong interior with a material palette of brick, timber and concrete. Light is brought in from above and a raised viewing platform gives spatial drama to this simple sports building.

Other Interior Features

Other features of interest include the spiral stair in the main foyer by the hall, which has cantilevered concrete treads around a large central newel and a steel and hardwood balustrade, and the spinal corridor on the east side of the cloistered court, which has stained glass windows by Yvonne Martin, another student of Lawrence Lee.

Note: The prefabricated classroom buildings placed in the Hall Court are not of special architectural or historic interest.