Avery Hill Training College (Main Doorway, Lobby, Passage And Theatre

Avery Hill Training College features a main doorway, lobby, passage, and theatre built in 1890. The entrance has a projecting portico with a semicircular end, constructed of ashlar stone. It is supported by paired Tuscan columns that hold up an entablature decorated with egg-and-dart dentils and topped with a balustraded parapet. The rear wall is divided by pilasters into a wide central bay and two narrow side bays, with decorative wrought iron screens on the side windows and the richly carved double doors. Above the entrance, a cornice and stone tympanum are adorned with a carved eagle, fruit, and the date 1890, while carved coats of arms are framed by fruit and leaf borders above the side windows.

To the right of the portico, there is a long passage wall made of red brick, featuring ashlar pilasters, an entablature, and a balustraded parapet. Below the architrave, small paired windows are separated by stone pilasters, and carved brick panels are placed between the main pilasters. The theatre block, partly hidden by later adjoining buildings, is also made of red brick and includes angle pilasters and a moulded cornice with various planes. The outer roof has a low pitch and is leaded, with a high attic featuring windows that have a pronounced batter, supported by curved buttresses that extend from the roof edge to the wooden eaves cornice. Diagonal buttresses are present at the corners, and the high-pitched, hipped attic roof is tiled.

Inside, the vestibule is wood-panelled and features fluted and reeded pilasters and an entablature. It has a central glazed dome and flanking skylights, along with a marble floor and a massive marble fireplace. To the right of the vestibule, the passage is entirely walled and floored in variegated marbles, with Corinthian pilasters that have gilded capitals resting on plinths and supporting an entablature. The ornate plaster ceiling has raised borders and panels, with the central ones being glazed. At the end of the passage, the theatre includes a backstage screen made of four tall Doric columns, an entablature, and a balustraded parapet, all crafted from green marble. The theatre has an apsidal end and features a deep coved cornice below raised attic windows, along with a pedimented entablature surrounding the entrance, matching the marble used for the stage screen. The dado is finished in dark green marble.