Former Notre Dame Training College Chapel And Practising School Including Boundary Walls, 74 Victoria Crescent Road

This is a Gothic cruciform former church, built between 1898 and 1900 by Pugin & Pugin, with a former practicing school at ground floor level. Later alterations and additions have been made, including a red brick rear extension. The exterior is predominantly constructed from squared and snecked bull-faced red sandstone with ashlar margins. A part base course is present, and buttresses divide the bays, with predominantly segmental headed windows to the school and bipartite plate tracery to the church.

The south elevation (main entrance) features an original tripartite apse which was later boxed in by a shallow extension, likely dating from around 1909 and probably by Pugin & Pugin. The elevation is four storeys high with five bays, incorporating recessed blind gables to the left and right, and a single bay within the re-entrant angle. Round-headed windows are present on the first three floors. Recessed entrance doors are flanked by a three-bay section on the ground floor, and a stone niche containing a statue is positioned in the centre of the third floor. Above, the original apse has a bipartite dormerheaded window that breaks the eaves. The east elevation presents an advanced paired gable section of two bays, connected to a two-bay section to the left and a six-bay section to the right. This connects at right angles to the former Dowanside House (listed separately).

Most of the glazing is modern, with limited stained glass remaining. The roof is covered in grey slates.

The interior features high-quality timberwork throughout. A timber quatrefoil glazed screen with small leaded panes and a part-glazed entrance door are located on the north side. A robust timber screen, similar to that found in the top floor of Dowanside House (listed separately), is also present. Two complete stained glass windows survive. The interior is predominantly whitewashed. The practising school has simple finishes, but with quality timberwork, glazed tiles or timber boarded dado height decoration, and decorative glazed screens in the upper part of the corridors, providing light and views into the classrooms. Circa 1926, large and impressive chalk and paint murals by Sister Theresa Bernard, the headteacher, were created. These murals depict a variety of subjects, including Jerusalem, Karnak, the Taj Mahal and an Assyrian Temple, and are partly hidden behind boarding in the corridors and classrooms.

The boundary walls consist of a section of curved and buttressed squared and snecked bull-faced sandstone wall to the south, which includes steps leading to the entrances of the church and school. To the southeast, there is a stepped section of coursed bull-faced red sandstone wall adjacent to the playground.