Former Francis Close College Old Practising School

The Former Francis Close College Old Practising School, built between 1854 and 1858, is a school that now serves as a college. Designed by architect G F Bodley, it features a Gothic style with stone over brick construction, steeply-pitched tiled roofs, half-hipped gables, gables, gambrel, and mansard roofs, along with tall stone chimney stacks. The building has an irregular U-plan.

On the exterior, there is a single tall storey school room with a single bay at the gable end and a four-bay return. The rear range has two storeys with attics, three first-floor windows, and an additional two-storey, single-bay range with an attic at the gable. The school room's gable end includes a three-light mullion and transom window with cusped rectangular heads, a Gothic arch above, and a tile-filled spandrel. The entrance is located in the right return within a gabled porch that features a plank door, followed by three two-light windows with shaped heads and an off-centre projecting stack. Behind this is a taller block with Gothic windows; the ground floor windows are four-light mullion and transom windows with quatrefoil decoration and relieving arches above. There is an inserted entrance on the right with a plank door in a pointed surround, while the upper stage has a three-light cusped window and two two-light straight-headed windows. The building also includes straight-headed roof dormers and an off-centre stack. A further gabled range features two cusped lights on the ground floor with a buttress in between, a first-floor two-light window in a cusped surround, and an attic three-light window with colonnettes and decorative arches above with an impost band. The right section has a mansard roof.

Inside, there is a dogleg staircase with stick balusters and newel posts in the right part of the building; the rest of the interior was not inspected.

Historically, the building was originally designed to connect with St Paul's Training College on Swindon Road.