Kenelm And Aldhelmsted East Boarding Houses, Sherborne Girls School

Kenelm and Aldhelmsted East Boarding Houses, Sherborne Girls School

A pair of boarding houses for Sherborne Girls School, designed by William Douglas Caröe and built in two phases—Kenelm in 1926–28 and Aldhelmsted East in 1937–38—in a free Queen Anne style. They are constructed entirely in red brick with pitched roofs covered in plain tiles interspersed with flat-roofed dormers.

The block consists of two three-storey houses with attics arranged as a mirror image of each other, forming an H-plan. Each house contains an entrance hall with open stairwell, a house study and kitchen at ground-floor level; a drawing room, dining room, dormitories, and head's study and bedroom at first-floor level; dormitories with rest and sick rooms and a linen room on the second and third floors; and former servants' bedrooms in the attic, served by separate servants' stairs near the kitchen.

The north-east front elevation displays three bays with projecting marginal wings. The central bay is gabled with an inset projecting axial bay featuring a broken pediment and oculus above, with a massive plain ridge stack behind. At ground-floor level the central entrance is flanked by rusticated banding in brick and has a bracketed canopy with a gauged tile cambered door-head. Brick stringcourses mark the first and second floors. The elevation incorporates a mix of timber casements with glazing bars and tall twin sashes with timber transoms and mullions. The slightly projecting entrance porticoes to each boarding house are angled to the projecting side wings. The porticoes comprise plain pilasters, cornices and cambered arches formed of gauged tile work, each with a recessed curved vestibule featuring decorative encaustic tile floors. The projecting side wings have central projecting bays incorporating pairs of massive lozenge-shaped chimney stacks with decorative cornices. At ground-floor level each wing has twin-gabled single-storey pavilions with plain tiled hipped roofs.

The rear elevation has seven bays with a central projecting bay similar to the front elevation but with a later attic storey incorporated into the gable. Timber casements and sashes throughout show some replacements to the dormers. The projecting gabled side bays incorporate tripartite sash windows at ground and first-floor levels. Rusticated pilasters appear at ground-floor level with stringcourses at ground and first floors. In the angle with the projecting side bays, at ground and first-floor level only, are quadrant inset bays with sashes.

The north and south return elevations are irregular, each with a narrow asymmetric full-height projecting bay with a steep open pediment and oculus. Minor additions exist to the dormers and a later door has been inserted at ground-floor level on both returns. Both return elevations have late 20th-century two-storey flat-roofed extensions in brick.

The interior of both houses is virtually intact with most original features remaining. The interiors are identical except for minor variations in brick and gauged tile work to the fireplaces; Aldhelmsted has a closed panelled stairwell as opposed to Kenelm's open stairwell with decorative turned balusters; and Kenelm has broad timber floorboards in the entrance hall. All communal rooms at ground and first-floor level have large decorative fireplaces with timber bolection-moulded surrounds and panels above, and decorative brick and gauged tiled hearths. Private studies and bedrooms have smaller versions of these. Original early 20th-century radiators and related pipe work survive throughout, along with built-in cupboards, shelving and panelled doors. The dormitories at first and second-floor levels have rows of open timber cubicles along a narrow central corridor.

Sherborne Girls School was founded in 1899 by Kenelm and Charlotte Wingfield Digby as an independent boarding school run on evangelical lines. The Digby family were longstanding patrons of girls' education in Sherborne. The school initially rented Ransome House on Greenhill (now Greenhill House). As pupil numbers rose to 60 by 1902, the governors commissioned a new purpose-built school designed by architect John Harding of Salisbury, with land granted by Wingfield Digby and funding provided through Sherborne School for the Higher Education of Girls Company Ltd, established in 1899.

In 1910 the school commissioned William Douglas Caröe (1857–1938) to design new school buildings. Caröe specialised in ecclesiastical architecture and was much influenced by Richard Norman Shaw. The school likely engaged Caröe through his work at Sherborne Abbey. In the early 20th century Caröe designed a tower and science block added to Harding's main building in 1926. Kenelm and Aldhelmsted East were Caröe's last boarding houses at Sherborne School, built in two phases to spread costs. His first pair, Wingfield and Alymar, was designed in 1910 and opened in 1911; Thurstan and Ealhstan, built to a butterfly plan, dates from 1914–16 and 1916–17. The design for Kenelm and Aldhelmsted was personally supervised by Caröe, who died in Cyprus in February 1938 just before Aldhelmsted East's completion.