Former Technical School Swindon including front wall and gate

Former Technical School, Swindon

This former technical school dates from 1895 and was built in Flemish-Baroque style by Messrs Long and Sons of Bath. It was designed by architect and surveyor Thomas Ball Silcock (1854-1924) for the Swindon and North Wiltshire Technical Instruction Committee, established in 1891 by Swindon New Town Urban District Council following the Technical Instruction Act of 1889.

The building is constructed of red local brick with decorative stone dressings. The pitched roofs are covered with slate tiles and feature brick chimney and ventilation stacks.

The three-storey building has an H-shaped plan with a central entrance hall at ground-floor level, where twin stairs provide access to the lower ground floor and first floor above. The former classrooms and workshops on all floors are situated at the front of the building, accessed from a corridor along the rear, with larger rooms positioned at the north and south ends.

The gabled front elevation facing Victoria Road is highly decorative with five bays, the outer bays projecting forward. The central bay projects slightly and contains the main entrance, accessed via a footbridge from Victoria Road leading to a perron with low swept brick walls and stone parapets. Large panelled doors with a lunette window above are set within an elaborate portico featuring engaged Gibbs surround, topped with a decorative frieze with central cartouches and swags, crowned with urn finials. The portico is flanked by large oculi windows with glazing bars and keystone detailing. Above the plat-band at first-floor level is a tall tripartite sash window, the outer sashes arched with the central one flat-headed. Above this is a modillion cornice topped with a Dutch-style gable featuring a central scalloped tympanum and swags, inscribed with the words 'TECHNICAL SCHOOL', and crowned with a bell-shaped pediment. The two recessed bays flanking the central bay (the left one bearing a date stone of 1895) feature tall segmental arched tripartite sash windows, flanked by single sashes on either side. The centre of the first floor contains a full Venetian-style window. The projecting end bays have sets of two arched sash windows, those to the upper floors flanked by recessed full-height panels with swags to the top, set under Dutch-style gables.

The gabled south end of the building features a segmental arched entrance flanked by segmental arched sash windows at lower ground-floor level. Above are four segmental arched sashes with a plat-band above. The top floor has tall twin round-arched windows set within the Dutch-style gable, flanked by flat-headed sashes on either side. The gabled north end has segmental arched sash windows at lower ground and ground-floor levels. The top floor features a central flat-headed sash window flanked on either side by large arched windows, each set within the Dutch-style gable.

The rear of the building is plain, six bays wide, with the central two bays containing stairwells and the two end bays projecting forward. The elevation contains irregularly placed windows throughout except for the tall windows lighting the stairwells. The far left bay is blind, and the far right bay has blocked openings. A raised covered walkway that linked the building to school buildings of 1961 has recently been removed, as have later rear extensions added in 1899 and 1902. The outline of the walkway remains visible.

The ground floor contains a large open entrance hall with glazed screens to the lobby and corridor, and two offices flanking the main entrance. The hall is lit by two tall Tuscan columns on square pedestals. To the centre of the rear wall, between the stairs, is a round-arched niche now boarded up. This formerly held a stained-glass First World War memorial window by an unknown artist. Photographs show a boy in school uniform holding the Union Jack with an angel behind and symbols of learning at his feet, inscribed above and below with the words 'GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN THIS - 1914 IN MEMORIAM 1918'. The lower part carries names of former pupils who died in the First World War.

Twin stairs lead to the lower ground floor and first floor. The stairs feature decorative cast-iron balusters and wooden swept handrails, lit by decorative tall leaded windows, the lower part of the right-hand window now replaced. The right-hand stairwell contains an inserted lift shaft. Large panelled doors with broad architraves, steel ceiling beams, and alcoves survive in the majority of former classrooms and workshops. Glazed screens with double doors in the corridors survive, though some doors have been replaced. Throughout, the building features decorative parquet floors and tall skirting boards. The lower ground-floor corridor has cast-iron heating grills to the floors.

At the north end of the lower ground floor is Burkhardt Hall, a 1949 remodelling of a former workshop. It features deep panelled lining to the door surround and a raised lecture podium with panelling at the base of the rear wall. A marble commemorative plaque with bronze profiled relief of the former headmaster reads: 'GEORGE HENRY BURKHARDT MA MS PRINCIPAL & HEADMASTER 1904-1932 FOUNDATION PRESIDENT OLD SWINDONIANS ASSOCIATION – ERECTED BY THE OLD SWINDONIANS ASSOCIATION 1949'.

The south front of the building is enclosed by brick stepped dwarf walls with curved stone parapets. A section at the north end has recently collapsed, and a section at the far south end appears recently removed to allow vehicular access to the building site behind the school. Brick piers, now truncated but formerly topped with ball finials, mark the entrance to the brick arched footbridge leading to the perron and main entrance. The walls were formerly topped with decorative cast-iron railings and gates, with only that to the far north end now surviving.

Due to severe water ingress, the top floor became unsafe and could not be accessed as of 2014.