Connaught Centre (Former Connaught Road School), Including Carpenters' Workshop

Connaught Centre is a primary school built in 1884 as Connaught Road School by the Hove School Board to the design of Thomas Simpson, with John T Chappell as builder. The building was extended around 1920 and in the late 20th century.

The school is constructed of yellow brick laid in English bond with red brick dressings and some rubbed brickwork. Decorative elements are executed in terracotta-coloured cement rendering, including moulded string courses, cornices, pilasters and window aprons. The roof is clay tile with decorative cresting.

The building comprises a long symmetrical rectangular block of two storeys, aligned north to south, with cross-wings at either end and to the centre. The central cross-wing is narrower and forms the main entrance. This is an early example of a corridor plan, with a longitudinal corridor on each floor. Classrooms are arranged along the west side and in the cross wings at either end, whilst ancillary rooms occupy the east side. A stair compartment at each end abuts the cross wing, with small rooms at mezzanine level leading off both staircases. Originally, the infants' school occupied the ground floor and the junior school the first floor, with boys at the north end and girls at the south. The central cross-wing has an entrance lobby at ground-floor level. Separate boys' and girls' entrances formerly existed at the north-east and south-east corners of the end cross-wings respectively, now infilled. The infants' entrance was probably in the porch at the rear of the central cross-wing, also now infilled. The addition of a gym hall around 1920 incorporated the rear classroom of the south cross-wing.

The front west elevation is symmetrical, two storeys high and thirteen bays, with a pitched roof. The end cross wings project about one metre from the wall face at the front, whilst the central cross-wing projects only slightly. The main entrance at the centre has a semi-circular arch framed with red brick pilasters on moulded bases with moulded render capitals and cornice. A frieze with moulded lettering reads 'CONNAUGHT ROAD COUNCIL SCHOOLS'. The spandrels are infilled with decorative terracotta tiles, each containing a medallion carved with monograms, now indecipherable but probably HSB for Hove School Board. Each cross wing has a shaped gable at front and rear. Intermediate bays (three, five, nine and eleven) have tall lucarne dormers with triangular pediments. There are two windows per bay in the cross wings and at first-floor level. In the remaining ground-floor bays they alternate between one and three windows per bay. Generally, ground-floor windows are segmental headed with moulded rendered arches, moulded brick sills and shallow aprons. Upper-floor windows have cambered arches, mainly rendered, some in red brick, most with rendered aprons. Windows are mainly multi-pane timber sashes. Taller windows to gables and dormers have an additional pivoting top light. A moulded string course runs between floors, and a deeper one at first-floor level continues through the sills. Paired first-floor windows to the entrance cross wing have pilastered surrounds and pilasters above the keystones continuing through a moulded cornice to the apex of the gable, which has a small semi-circular headed casement window. Those to the end wings are similar but with strapwork scrolls and a blind bulls-eye window in a rendered panel. Lucarne dormers also have decorative pilasters and a moulded cornice with a small window in the pediment. The dormers' cheeks are slate-hung.

The north and south elevations are asymmetrical. The south elevation is partly obscured by the gym extension. Each has a lucarne dormer matching those at the front. The former boys' entrance at the north-east corner, originally an open arcade, has two semi-circular arches to the rear and one to the north side, in red rubbed brick with moulded imposts. The north arch is surmounted by an upswept segmental pediment in rubbed brick with 'BOYS ENTRANCE' in terracotta lettering. Only the two north arches of the corresponding girls' entrance on the south-east corner remain, modified as windows; the remainder was removed during construction of the hall.

The central cross-wing of the rear east elevation has an arcaded porch, also infilled. The stair compartments have hipped roofs, whilst lower sections between cross wings have flat roofs. Chimneystacks feature red-brick banding and cornices. The pitched roofs are constructed with wooden rafters and purlins supported on arch-braced collar-beam trusses.

The single-storey gym hall of around 1920 at the south end of the school and the late 20th-century or early 21st-century lift extension at the rear are not of special interest.

Internally, the plan form survives with various limited alterations, including subdivision or removal of walls to create larger classrooms. Suspended ceilings have been added throughout the ground and first floor, although arched roof trusses survive above them at first floor. Much internal joinery remains, including classroom doors with glazed panels above, radial-pattern fanlights to corridor arches at ground floor, dados, cupboards and some tiled fireplaces.

At the north-east corner of the site is the former carpenters' workshop, which is of group value with the school. It is of yellow brick with red brick dressings and a clay tile roof with decorative cresting. The building comprises a two-storey three-bay entrance block with a hipped roof, and a taller two-storey rear block, three bays long, with a pitched roof. The central bay above the entrance has a blind semi-circular keyed arch in moulded red brick with a panelled apron and pediment over. Ground-floor windows all have cambered arches, whilst upper floor windows have flat arches. The entrance block has double-hung sashes, and the rear part has casements with mullions and transoms. A modern flat-roofed extension to the south is not of special interest.

The school was built in 1884 for the newly-formed Hove School Board to the designs of Thomas Simpson (1825-1908). Following studies in Germany, considered at the cutting edge in its provision of education for the masses in the late 19th century, Thomas Simpson began his career in Brighton articled to his uncle, James Charnock Simpson. He later worked in the office of the ecclesiastical architect Joseph Butler of Chichester before moving to London to work as Principal Assistant to the leading Gothic Revival architect William Butterfield. On leaving Butterfield's practice, Simpson returned to Brighton to continue his uncle's practice. In 1871 he was appointed as Surveyor and Architect to the newly-formed Brighton and Preston School Board and went on to design, later in collaboration with his sons (his older son being the better-known John William Simpson), all except one of the Brighton board schools (Richmond Street).

The Connaught Centre is the only educational building by Simpson remaining in Hove, and the only remaining board school built for the School Board of Hove. The cost of the site was £2,600 and the buildings £9,580. An intended cupola and weather vanes were not carried out. There was accommodation for 229 boys, 160 girls and 241 infants. Laboratories were built in 1893, and a carpenter's workshop in 1903 to the designs of Clayton & Black. By 1904 there were 736 pupils on the roll. After the reorganisation of schools in the 1940s part of the school became the Hove Manor Secondary Modern School, closing down in 1967. The remaining part became the Connaught First School until that was closed in 1984. The school subsequently became the Connaught Adult Education centre.