Blackwell School

Blackwell School, Bowness, Windermere

House, latterly used as a school and subsequently as offices, now empty. Built in 1899 with minor late 20th-century alterations. Designed by architect Mackey Hugh Baillie Scott for Sir Edward Holt. The building features painted roughcast walling with ashlar sandstone dressings and a Westmorland slate roof laid to diminishing courses. Coped gables and tapering linked chimneys exemplify the Vernacular Revival style.

The house follows an elongated L-plan with the principal range aligned east-west and a service wing attached at the west end, extending southwards.

The south-facing front elevation of the main range is irregular and gabled, rising to 2 storeys with attics stepping forward from right to left. The principal entrance to the centre gable is approached by a shallow flight of steps and features a wide 4-centred arched head with moulded surround to a double doorway. The doors are vertically ribbed with carved decoration to the mid-rails and elaborately decorated E-shaped straps. A secondary entrance with integral side light occupies the left-hand gable. The gables incorporate flush-mullioned windows of 2, 3 and 4 lights, mostly with plain leaded glazing, though windows to principal rooms feature stained glass in Art Nouveau style. Decorative rainwater heads set between the gables bear inscriptions: to the right "AD. 1900" and to the left "E(dward) H(olt)". The service range has multi-light flush-mullioned windows to its east and south elevations.

The north elevation displays triple gables to the west end. The centre gable contains a canted mullioned and transomed bay window, with a smaller canted bay fire window to the eastern gable. A narrow return gable to the left adjoins a set-back part of the main range featuring a second wide canted mullioned and transomed bay window near the north-east corner. The east end gable has a smaller ground floor bay window set on a projecting base extending upwards from basement level. Below, to the right, is a basement doorway with an integral 2-light window.

The entrance hallway features a patterned stone floor and stained glass windows, with a corridor providing access to the ground floor principal rooms facing south.

The principal reception room occupies the centre and is dominated by a massive inglenook to the south-west corner, lit by a small canted bay fire window and furnished with fixed wooden bench seating. The hearth features a massive joggled and keyed stone lintel supported upon squat jambs with carved capitals. A hearth bressumer, carried on pairs of posts with steeply-angled brackets, forms the cill beam of a close-studded gallery with 2-light windows to the centre and curved bracing below. A set-back staircase to the right has panelled flanking walls, newel posts and carved finials, giving access to a 3-bay open-fronted gallery with elaborately carved foliated spandrels to the arched heads. A dog-leg stair to the left of the gallery landing provides access to the inglenook gallery. The entrance to the first floor corridor is expressed as a long gallery within the central, full-height part of the room, featuring herring-bone framing and incorporating 2 and 4-light gallery windows. Below, a half-glazed screen to the ground floor corridor has double sliding doors with diamond leaded glazing to the left and decorative stained glass windows to the right and upper parts of the doors. The east end part of the room has a square panelled timber ceiling and panelled walls with carved mid-rails beneath an elaborate frieze depicting peacocks painted onto fabric wall covering. The north wall features a recessed bench seat set between braced posts.

The east end room possesses a massive inglenook to the south-east corner with the hearth set within a recess formed by a depressed ashlar arch. The hearth displays a deep lintel formed from joggled and keyed voussoirs and is flanked by fixed benches. Panelled wainscotting supports painted fabric wall covering above.

The west end room features an elaborate ashlar hearth to the east side wall with a joggled lintel, set within a painted timber surround. A canted overmantel with flanking shelved niches delineated by clusters of slender shafts with openwork foliated capitals supports a hearth canopy. The hearth is flanked by a bench with panelled back, incorporating a stained glass window to the right. Pairs of columns frame the end of the seating. A deep plaster frieze with foliage decoration crowns the painted panelling. A bay window seat to the north-west corner has flanking columns.

The first floor comprises a panelled corridor with mid-way access stairs to the principal attic room. Main bedrooms occupy the south-east and south-west corners; the south-west bedroom features an inglenook fireplace with flanking stained glass windows to the chimney wall and advanced flanking benches. Minor rooms have panelled doors.

Blackwell is considered Baillie Scott's finest surviving work in England. Its significance is substantially enhanced by the survival of numerous interior elements of outstanding importance, notwithstanding its recent use as a school and offices.