Medway Adult Education Centre

ROCHESTER CORPORATION STREET TQ 7468 10/20 Medway Adult Education Centre GV II Formerly the Rochester Technical Institute, now an Adult Education Centre. 1905-6 by S B Russell and Edwin Cooper. 'Neo- English Baroque' style. Red brick with limestone ashlar dressings; welsh slate hipped roof. Plan: central entrance with rear centre Imperial stair and large 1st floor hall to centre front; classrooms and smaller offices with top-lit attic studios. Main block, 2½ storeys and attic. Front: (W), 2:3:2 bays all under prominent dentil cornice. Centre bays project; cornice brought out over 4 giant pilasters that are rusticated below a ground-floor lintel band (that continues around the rest of the building). Entrance recessed, the pilasters associated with Tuscan columns to form a 3-bay portico. Late C20 glazed doors flanked by sash windows. 1st floor sashed windows with moulded architraves and cornices. Below the main cornice to each bay a blank panel flanked by garlands. Side bays with rusticated brick quoins, sashes with exposed frames in rubbed brick surrounds with keystone, and metal-framed oculi to upper half storey. 20 and 24-pane sashes to ground and 1st floor throughout. Continuous dormers form an attic storey. Central tall cupola. Corporation Street (N) wing of 3 storeys, with large sash windows (3 to W, 4 to N) and minimal stone dressings. 2 utilitarian 4 storey gault brick wings to rear. Interior: metal roof membring, concrete floors with parquet blocks. Note: This building is a good example of these important early-C20 architects' work.

Listing NGR: TQ7453968330