Comper Foundation Stage School

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 25/09/2012

SP5305 20/840 1485

HERTFORD STREET Comper Foundation Stage School

(Formerly listed as St. Mary and St. John First School)

II

Formerly St. Mary and St. John Infants School, c. 1902. W Bucknall and J N Comper. Free Gothic. H-p1an school with central hall and classrooms to north, east and south. Red brick with dormers of roughcast and imitated half timbering. Tiled roofs. Windows throughout have Tudor arches and single chamfer, heavy wooden casements with all glazing bars. Facade to Hertford Street : Gabled wings with round coping and three stepped windows. The centre is of six bays with crenellated parapet and buttresses with two setbacks. Two large triangular dormers centred over second and fifth bays. On central buttress a small cusped stone niche with figure of St. Mary and foundation stone with worn applied lettering. Asymmetrical end facades, each with Tudor lancets under central gable and plank door with ornamental hinges to right hand side. Rear facade of five gables, the three in centre over triple windows. Two dormers as at front.

Interior. Central hall with wide pointed wooden tunnel vault, brought to seven corbels on each side by small cross vaults above large glazed partitions which light the classrooms on east, and windows on west. Vault defined by delicate roll-moulded ribs on arrises and perpendicular to the ridge, painted brown, dark blue and gold (said to reproduce the original scheme). Classrooms under tunnel vaults running out from walls of hall.

Listing NGR: SP5310205198