More information : This school is being assessed for listing as part of an English Heritage thematic survey of the surviving schools designed by George Widdows in Derbyshire in 1906-1936. George H. Widdows (1871-1946) is nationally acknowledged as a leading and influential designer of schools in the early 20th century. He was appointed as architect to Derbyshire County Council's Education Committee in 1904, and in 1910 became Chief Architect to the Council. By the time he retired in 1936, he had designed some sixty elementary and seventeen secondary schools. Nine of these have already been listed.
Widdows responded to concerns about health and hygiene in schools by developing a series of revolutionary plan forms which introduced cross ventilation and natural daylight. His schools are characterised by open verandah corridors and large expanses of glazing, including hopper and pivot windows. There are four characteristic plans for the elementary schools built to his designs before 1914. The earliest was the 'marching corridor' type; only five schools were built to this experimental and rather expensive plan. The second type was linear in form, with a larger classroom at each end and often a freestanding hall with linking corridor to the rear. The third type was the most dramatic, a butterfly-shaped plan with pairs of classrooms leading from the corners of a central hall. The fourth type was designed for irregularly-shaped sites and had a corner hall, octagonal in plan. Widdows' designs for elementary schools in the inter-war period were often based on a collegiate system of quadrangle plans. His secondary schools were larger ensembles and tend to have a greater architectural presence. Assessment of these schools takes into account architectural quality and the extent to which the surviving fabric represents Widdows' design innovation in a national context.
Palterton Primary School was completed in 1908 and first appears on the OS map of 1918. It is constructed of red brick with part render and a clay tile roof. It is a variant of Widdows' third type plan, described by him as 'Plan No. 4' in a paper he presented to the Royal Sanitary Institute on 25 February 1910. This variant had blocks of three classrooms and a cloakroom on either side of a central hall, at right angles to it. Widdows stated that this plan allowed for three classrooms to be built first and extended when required, but that it was not particularly good for cross ventilation. At Palterton only the left side of the plan was built. The intention must have been to build a hall and further classrooms to the east, but this never happened. Although there is some quality in the exterior detailing, such as diaper brickwork patterns in the south front gables and a tall moulded chimney stack, this is marred by unsightly modern extensions. The enclosed verandah on the south front is a later addition, and most of the windows have been replaced with UPVC.
This school is an incomplete example of the work of George Widdows, as only part of the original design was constructed. Widdows himself considered this plan form type less effective in achieving cross ventilation. Its main benefit was in providing a hall for village meetings, but the hall was never built. The school has been unsympathetically altered and extended in recent times. It does not have special architectural or historic interest on a national level and does not fulfil the criteria for listing. (1)
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