11, Dyke Road

This is a school building, now a nightclub, dating from 1867. It was designed by George Somers Clarke Senior for the Swan Downer School, which was established in 1816 to educate 20 poor girls. A foundation stone was laid in 1867 by the Rev HM Wagner. The building is constructed of brown brick in English bond, with red brick and stone dressings, now painted to the level of the entrance springing. It has tile and lead roofs.

The exterior presents a two-storey, two-window range to Dyke Road, with an entrance wing to the left under a steeply hipped roof and a main wing to the right under a higher pitched roof. The flat-arched entrance is topped by a pointed arch with an ogee hoodmould, containing a shield and scrolls within its tympanum. The main wing features paired lancet windows, each pair divided by a column supporting the vaulting beneath the first-floor oriel. There is a chamfered corner to the first floor with a traceried niche at the head. A large oriel window spans the first floor, supported on shafts and vaulting; the central, squat column has capitals of interlaced foliage, while the subsidiary shafts rise between the ground-floor windows. Vaulting and detailing of the lower part of the oriel window are lost. The bay provides four windows to the front, and a single window to each side, separated by exceedingly slim columns with spiral fluting and tiny capitals. The upper lights are fitted with inventive mouchette tracery, and a cornice includes ballflower ornament, with gargoyles to the corners. The hipped lead roof of the bay is divided to accommodate a lozenge window with original mouchette tracery and a crocketed hoodmould with a foliage finial. A three-light window above the entrance has blank toplights decorated with mouchettes, quatrefoils and shields. A decayed cornice features heads above. A parapet is decorated with S-scrolled openwork, and the principal gable has tumbled-in brickwork and openwork stone crowstepping terminating in a finial. External side stacks are corbelled out below the eaves with tumbled-in brickwork and offsets. The entrance wing’s roof has evidence of leadwork for a missing finial.

The interior was not inspected.