6-10 Bridge Street

This mid-19th century institutional building, originally a school and later converted to office use, occupies a rectangular footprint with a long east-facing elevation on Bridge Street. The principal, east elevation is faced in ashlar Bath Stone, while the south and west elevations are of red brick; the south elevation incorporates later 20th-century bricks laid in stretcher bond. The roof is slate with lead coverings to the dormers.

The building is two storeys plus a basement and attic rooms, arranged across seven bays. The east elevation is designed in a neoclassical style and exhibits symmetrical arrangement. The ground floor features entrances in the two end bays and five large casement windows between. A plinth runs along the length, interrupted by basement lights in the five central bays. Each bay is flanked by a pair of Ionic pilasters rising to a blank frieze and a cornice. A honeysuckle capital adorns the pilaster at the north end of the elevation. Flat canopies, supported by moulded consoles and pilasters with Soanian carvings, shelter the entrances. Due to the sloping ground, the southern entrance is recessed and accessed by eight steps, featuring a modern glass door and moulded timber panelling. The northern entrance has only two steps leading to double doors with circular mouldings. The casement windows in the central bays have plain surrounds, slightly recessed within the façade, with narrow recessed panels beneath the cills.

The first floor has seven matching, evenly-spaced, six-over-six timber sash windows with stone cills, each with a recessed panel above. Pilasters frame each bay, rising to a stone cornice and coped parapet, with an arcaded panel within each bay. Dormers with timber sash windows are visible above the parapet.

The south elevation is constructed of red brick laid in stretcher bond with soldier courses. The west side has four sash windows on the basement, ground, and first floors, and four flat-roofed dormers on the mansard roof’s western slope. A shallow, full-height cross wing with a pitched roof extends from the two southernmost bays, having a single window on the first and second floors.

The interior contains a staircase with a lotus pattern cast iron balusters. A segmental plaster barrel vault springs from a bracketed wall plate on the first floor, supported by brackets on incised pilasters, with heavy segmental panels on the end walls.