Our Lady'S School, Crosslands Convent

Our Lady's School, formerly Crosslands Convent, is a mansion house dating to circa 1865, with later additions. It was originally commissioned for JT Smith. The building is constructed of coursed red sandstone with ashlar dressings, and features a graduated slate roof. It is two storeys and an attic, with a 3x3 bay arrangement, and a two-storey, two-bay, twin-roofed wing attached to the right, serving as service rooms. A single-storey porch projects deeply to the front left.

The battered plinth rises to a ground floor sill band. Ground floor windows are predominantly four-pane sashes set beneath dichromatic segmental arches. First-floor windows feature two-light sashes with plain mullions, cornices, and recessed panels with pointed relieving arches, with iron rails fixed to the sill bands. The entrance front has a porch with a six-panel door under a moulded segmental arch with a hoodmould, and a parapet with rope mould, a blank shield, quatrefoils, and roll-moulded copings, topped with a flat roof.

A projecting central tower features an arched three-light window under a hoodmould with a carved head, which extends over single-light windows on each return. A corbel table supports a rope-moulded parapet; the pyramidal roof incorporates colour-banded slates, lucarnes, and a metal finial. The main range has an ovolo-moulded eaves band beneath a moulded cast-iron gutter, and hipped roofs with roll-moulded ridges and metal finials. Dormers are present in bays 1 and 3, each with two four-pane casements under a hipped roof with a metal finial. Ashlar stacks with offsets and corbelled caps are situated on the side ridges.

The service wing, set back on the right, is plainer, with hipped right ends to its roofs, and a tower rising between, topped with a hipped saddleback roof. The rear of the building largely mirrors the front, with three dormers and altered casements. The left return features a two-storey canted bay-window under a hipped projection of the main roof. A single-storey, ashlar bay-window of four by two lights, with narrow sashes, joggled arches, and a pierced parapet, is found in a third bay. Two roof dormers are also present.

The interior features a patterned tile floor to the entrance hall, plaster wall panels, and six-panel pine doors set within roll-moulded architraves. A staircase has a cast-iron balustrade and a wreathed mahogany handrail; a three-bay arcade is located on the landing, complemented by a panelled ceiling with a margin-glazed skylight. Several rooms, now used as classrooms, retain original fireplaces, plaster cornices, and moulded ceilings. JT Smith was the manager of the Barrow Haematite Iron and Steel Company.