| Summary : Brockley Primary School (South block) was designed by George H. Widdows and is thought to have been cpmpleted in 1927. It was one of a large number of new schools built to Widdows' designs by Derbyshire County Council in the early 20th century. The school is built of red brick with Welsh slate and a plain tile roof coverings It is U-shaped on plan, with a west-facing street elevation comprising a tall central hall with attaced flanking two storey entrance and administrative areas. To the rear are two parallel single storey classroom ranges, each with open verandah corridors on each side. The wings enclose a central courtyard playground area, and the inner verandah corridors are linked to a similar corridor extending along the rear wall of the front range. The verandah corridors have timber arcade posts with miniature curved braces, and low level timber balustrades between. The classrooms have been modernised, but retain original cupboards and other joinery features. the central hall retains wall panelling, honours boards and a stage and proscenium set between giant pilasters. There have been some minor alterations and modification but in most respects the school is substantially unaltered. Listed Grade II (Listed BUilding Number 506516). |
More information : Brockley Primary School (South block) was designed by the architect George H. Widdows (1871-1946) and is thought to have been completed in 1927. It was one of a large number of new schools built to Widdows' designs by Derbyshire County Council in the early 20th century. Derbyshire had the greatest percentage increase in population in the country in the 1890s, particularly due to the growth of the coal mining and textile manufacturing communities in the east of the county. Widdows had come to Derbyshire in 1897 as Chief Architectural Assistant to Derby Corporation. Following the 1902 Education Act, responsibility for schools in the county passed to Derbyshire County Council. In 1904 Widdows was appointed architect to the Council's Education Committee. In 1910 he was appointed Chief Architect to the Council, although schools remained his predominant concern. By the time he retired in 1936, he had designed some sixty elementary and seventeen secondary schools.
Widdows was at the forefront of the movement to build schools in which high standards of hygiene were as important as educational provision. The first major conference on school hygiene was held in 1904, and in 1907 the Board of Health brought in legislation which required schools to become subject to regular medical inspections. Widdows worked with his Medical Officer, Sidney Barwise, and two deputy architects, C. A. Edeson and T. Walker, to develop a series of innovative designs introducing high levels of natural daylight and effective cross ventilation in schools. His designs, often in a neo-vernacular style, were characterised by open verandah-style corridors linking classrooms with generous full-height windows. His distinctive and influential plan forms were based on a linear module which could be arranged in different configurations to suit the size of school required and the shape of the available site. This was a significant move away from the standard Board School plan introduced by E. R. Robson, with its central assembly hall and classrooms to three sides.
The advances Widdows made in school planning were soon recognised by his contemporaries. In an article on provincial school building in 1913, The Builder stated that his work 'constitutes a revolution in the planning and arrangement of school buildings... a real advance which places English school architecture without a rival in any European country or the United States.'
Widdows' pre-1914 designs were mainly for elementary schools, and were the testing ground for new plan form arrangements and detailing related to natural lighting and ventilation which were to be further developed and refined in the inter-war phase of school construction in Derbyshire. Quadrangular plans, in which playground areas were partially or wholly enclosed by classroom wings extending to the rear of a central hall and administrative range characterise this phase of development. The classroom wings were of highly distinctive form, incorporating the open verandah corridors favoured in the pre-1914 designs, but with continuous high-level north light glazing to the classroom areas, and glazed partitions and doors onto the corridors located on both sides of the classroom wings.
This is the arrangement found at Brockley, which was developed in the inter-war period on a green field site to the south of an earlier complex of school buildings located on the east side of Clowne Road. The 1918 O.S. map shows two buildings, identified as 'schools' with a large open plot of land to the south. The upper of the two buildings was subsequently demolished and the lower building apparently extended. It is not known whether these changes occurred at the same time as the construction of the present Brockley Primary School (South block), which remains in use at the present time.
Brockley Primary School (South block) is built of red brick with Welsh slate and plain tile roof coverings. It is U-shaped on plan, with a west-facing street elevation comprising a tall central hall with attached flanking two storey entrance and administrative areas. To the rear of this frontage range are two parallel single storey classroom ranges, each with open verandah corridors on each side. The wings enclose a central courtyard playground area, and the inner verandah corridors are linked to a similar corridor extending along the rear wall of the frontage range. There have been minor extensions and modifications to the southern classroom wing, and some replacement of window frames in UPVC to the front elevation, but in most respects the school is substantially unaltered. The hall range has a deep hipped mansard roof, a form continued in the storied flanking buildings which have full height canted bay windows to the street elevation and flat roofed dormer windows to the outward facing roof slopes. The classroom ranges have north lights to one side of the roof and plain tile coverings without dormers to the other. The verandah corridors have timber arcade posts with miniature curved braces, and low level timber balustrades between. The classroom corridor walls are glazed timber partitions incorporating double doors and fixed panels, all originally multi-paned. The classrooms have been modernised, but retain original cupboards and other joinery fixtures. The central hall retains wall panelling, honours boards and a stage and proscenium set between giant pilasters.
Brockley Primary School (South block) is thought to be one of the least altered of the inter-war schools designed by Widdows. Although it is not clear in what sequence the different building complexes at Brockley were constructed, the present primary school was the last part to be developed, and, in its little- altered form is strongly representative of the inter-war phase of school development under Widdows' direction. The plan form of the school has survived all but minor modification, and remains completely legible. The classroom wings retain their original joinery, north lights and open verandah corridors which are carried around the rear of the central hall. This too is substantially unaltered, retaining original interior fixtures and finishes, although original window frames have recently been replaced with UPVC components. The window and door openings themselves have not been altered, nor have they been added to. The architectural character of the school, whilst essentially functional, is nevertheless distinctive with a limited palette of materials having been used to create a building complex of considerable interest. Decorative detail was not forgotten either, as is evident in the hall interior and in the nail-head detailing of the schools boundary wall railings and gates. The school survives as one of the best preserved examples of Widdows' inter-war schools in which the imperatives of good ventilation and high levels of natural lighting are clearly represented in the design of its component parts, and most emphatically in the classroom wings and their attached verandah corridors. (1) |