Schools

A selection of historic school buildings Check out our Teachers' Notes: A Brief History of Schools and our How to Guide: How to Trace the History of a School

Add to My Favourites English Heritage.NMR Heathrow School, Harmondsworth Lane, Sipson, Greater London Children at play outside the newly built Heathrow Primary School in Hillingdon, which replaced an earlier school in the village of Sipson in the late 1960s.	Add to My Favourites Reproduced by permission of English Heritage.NMR Catherine Street School, Hackney, Greater London The board school on Catherine Street (now Cranwood Street) backing onto Brunswick Place in Hackney with teachers and pupils in the yard. The London School Board was created under the Elementary Education Act 1870 to set up schools in the area covered by the London County Council. This school is an example of the classic triple-decker London Board school design and has a rooftop playground. Infants were taught on the ground floor, girls on the middle floor and boys on the top floor.
Add to My Favourites Dr Henry Teed ARPS. Source English Heritage.NMR The Latin School, Wye College, High Street, Wye, Kent This schoolroom was built around 1445 for Cardinal Archbishop John Kempe. It was built as the Grammar School for Kempe's original College of St Gregory and St Martin. It continued to be used after the Dissolution despite its Roman Catholic origins. Read official list description.	Add to My Favourites Mr Derek Le Mare. Source English Heritage.NMR Former Dame School, Ravenstonedale, Cumbria This cottage probably dates from the 16th century. The building adjoining was used as a Dame School. It was converted from outbuildings in 1859. Dame schools were schools for young children and only provided a very basic education. In some cases the children were just looked after and not taught at all. They were used by poorer people who had to work and would pay a small sum for the dame, who would have no qualifications, to look after their children. Read official list description.
Add to My Favourites reproduced by permission of English Heritage.NMR Wolverhampton Grammar School, Wolverhampton, West Midlands Wolverhampton Grammar School dates back to 1515 when the school was founded by Stephen Jenys of the Merchant Taylors' Guild in the town centre. This photograph was taken in 1875, shortly after a new building was built on the Compton Road. It shows the schoolroom with the headmaster's house on the right. It is a fine example of Victorian ' Tudor Revival' style architecture. The original 'Big School' has changed very little although it is now (2009)part of a much larger complex of school buildings.	Add to My Favourites Mr Stewart Cardwell. Source English Heritage.NMR Threshfield School, Threshfield, North Yorkshire This school was founded as a Grammar School in 1674 by Matthew Hewitt. He was a member of the local land-owning family. He left money to build the free school and to pay for a master and an usher. He also left money to pay for scholarships to St. John's College, Cambridge, the first choice always to be from Threshfield school. Until 1730 boys were sent yearly to Cambridge, but between 1790 and 1820 only 3 went. In 1859 the endowment became a gift to the general revenues of the college. Read official list description.
Add to My Favourites Mr G M Smith ARPS. Source English Heritage.NMR Former Girls' Charity School, Kirkham, Lancashire This school was built in 1860 at the expense of Thomas Langton Birley of Carr Hill for the girls' charity school. The school was founded in 1760 on another site. It was built in a Gothic style. Charity schools were run by religious or philanthropic groups. Some were set up by clergymen or local landowners and only ran for a short time. Others were financed by charitable trusts and may still exist today. They were mainly concerned to teach children about Christianity and to prepare them for apprenticeships or domestic service.Read official list description.	Add to My Favourites Mr Nigel Wood. Source English Heritage.NMR United Reformed Sunday School, Elland, West Yorkshire United Reformed Sunday School, built in 1853 by Joseph James. It is of a good, substantial Jacobean design. At this time many children worked and could only go to school on Sundays. Sunday Schools were established from the 1780s and taught basic literacy, numeracy and Religious Education. By 1851 they were being supported by the Sunday School Union. Read official list description.
Add to My Favourites Mr David J Wilkinson LRPS. Source English Heritage.NMR Bolland Hall, Morpeth, Northumberland This building was built as a school in 1860. It was paid for by Mrs Bolland, the widow of a Morpeth curate. It was built as a day industrial school for the "half- neglected children on the north side of Newgate Street". It became a National Girls' School, and was amalgamated with St James's Church of England Schools in 1885. It was then acquired by the Presbyterians and used as Mission School and Sunday School until 1937. Read official list description.	Add to My Favourites Mrs Mollie Toy. Source English Heritage.NMR The Ragged School, Brook Street, Nottingham This building was the Town Mission Ragged School. Ragged Schools began in the 1850s when the Earl of Shaftesbury promoted the idea that children should work less and have at least basic schooling. This school was designed by C.H. Edwards, a London architect, in 1857. It was officially opened by the Earl of Shaftesbury in 1859. At that time the local lace mills often worked night and day using child labour. After the Education Act of 1870 the school became part of the Nottingham School Board. Read official list description.
Add to My Favourites Mr John Burrows DPAGB. Source English Heritage.NMR Wynnstay House, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire This is the oldest surviving specially designed Infant School built according to the most up to date ideas of the time. It was opened on 20 July 1830. Inside it was originally a single schoolroom measuring 60 x 30 feet. It was designed to accommodate 250 children aged 2 to 7. It was designed by Samuel Wilderspin who believed infants needed face to face, group teaching. He developed what was later named the 'chalk and talk' method of teaching. The building has been converted into offices. Read official list description.	Add to My Favourites Mr Malcolm Sales ARPS ABIPP. Source English Heritage.NMR Former British School, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire This school was built as a British School in 1839. It was built in a Gothic style known as 'Ecclesiastical' (church) Gothic that was used by all the church schools at this time. The British and Foreign School Society supported the building of schools called British Schools on behalf of the Nonconformist churches. The school later became St Mary's C of E Infants School. Read official list description.
Add to My Favourites Ms Diana Hill. Source English Heritage.NMR The Old School, Martock, Somerset This school was built in 1846. It is a good example of a small National School. It has the inscription "Glory to God in the Highest/Martock National School House/ erected by public and private contributions/AD 1846/Jesus said suffer the little children to come unto me". National Schools were set up by The National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor. They supported the building of National Schools on behalf of the Church of England. Read official list description.	Add to My Favourites Reproduced by permission of English Heritage.NMR Kilburn Lane Board School, Kilburn Lane, West Kilburn, Greater London Interior of the carpenters shop showing students at work. The London School Board was created under the Elementary Education Act 1870 to provide schools in the area covered by the London County Council. In the late 1890s the minimum school leaving age went up from 10 to 12. Schools began to introduce more technical and vocational subjects to prepare pupils for work.
Add to My Favourites Mrs Barbara A West LRPS. Source English Heritage.NMR Former Lowfield Board School, Sheffield, South Yorkshire Lowfield Board School was built in 1874 in a Gothic Revival style. It was one of the earliest board schools. It catered for 305 boys, 220 girls and 260 infants. The Sheffield School Board employed the architects Innocent and Brown. By 1889 they had twenty six schools and were planning four more. Lowfield Community Primary School is still educating children today (2010). Read official list description.	Add to My Favourites Mr Richard Clegg LRPS. Source English Heritage.NMR St Ives Junior School, The Stennack, St Ives, Cornwall This building was originally a Board School. It was designed in 1878 by Silvarus Trevail, an important architect. The plans for the school were exhibited at the 1878 Paris Exhibition and afterwards in the International Exhibition held in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia. Board Schools were built by local School Boards (committees) formed after the 1870 Education Act. The act was designed to build more schools and provide an education for children who had not previously been able to attend school. Read official list description.
Add to My Favourites Mr Geoffrey R. Handford. Source English Heritage.N Leeds Industrial School, Leeds, West Yorkshire This former Industrial school dates form 1879. It was designed by Richard Adams, the Leeds School Board architect. It was a boarding school for less academic boys who were trained in manufacturing skills. It originally stood in almost open country with only large houses nearby. Richard Adams was the Board School architect who designed the largest number of schools. This building is typical of one of his plainer but very imposing, almost workhouse-style, buildings. 180 boys lived here in 1903. It was later used as Education Department premises. Read official list description.	Add to My Favourites Miss Janet Gibson. Source English Heritage.NMR Knowle School, Maxse Road, Knowle, Bristol This board school was built around 1900 in Queen Anne style typical of later board schools. It is built to the typical later plan of the Bristol School Board. It is single story and has a central hall with classroom blocks around it. It was probably built to the designs of either H Dare Bryan or F Bligh Bond. After the Education Act of 1870 school boards were set up all over England. They built many schools and often adopted a style that was specific to that particular board. Read official list description.
Add to My Favourites Mr Simon Barker. Source English Heritage.NMR Roby Mill C of E Primary School, Up Holland, Lancashire This school was built around 1870 by the National Society as a Voluntary School. After 1870 the National Society tried to prevent School Boards being set up in some places by continuing to build schools. Their schools were generally smaller and plainer than the board schools. Many still had just two large rooms like this one. This was partly because they had less money than the boards but also due to old fashioned educational ideas. Read official list description.	Add to My Favourites Dr Eric Ritchie. Source English Heritage.NMR Glebe Junior School, Hamlet Lane, South Normanton, Derbyshire This is probably the earliest school designed by George Widdows who was County Architect for Derbyshire in the early years of the 20th century. He pioneered healthier designs for school buildings. He introduced large windows with openings designed to allow extra ventilation and verandah corridors. It was built in 1900. Read official list description.
Add to My Favourites Dr Neil J. Clarke LRPS. Source English Heritage.NMR Village College, Impington, Cambridgeshire This comprehensive school was originally built as a village college. It was constructed in 1938-9 by Walter Gropius and E Maxwell Fry. This is the most significant and only unaltered work by the pioneering modern architect and educator Walter Gropius (1883-1969) from his short residency in Britain (1934-7), and one of his few buildings anywhere. Gropius was the pioneer of the simple modern style of architecture in brick and glass. Many future schools and buildings would be designed following these principals. Read official list description.	Add to My Favourites Graham Brown LRPS. Source English Heritage.NMR Smithdon School, Kings Lynn Road, Hunstanton, Norfolk This Secondary school was built in 1950-54. It was designed by Alison and Peter Smithson in a Brutalist style of architecture. It is an important building with innovative steelwork. However many aspects of the design are impractical for a school. For example the large amount of glass used for the walls made many of the classrooms unbearably hot, like being in a green house. A review when it opened stated that the 'building seems to ignore the children for which it was built'.
Add to My Favourites Mr Edward Alvey. Source English Heritage.NMR Woodlands School, Coventry, West Midlands The Main Block at Woodlands School was built in 1952-57 by the City Architects Department with the Ministry of Education Development Group. It was built using a steel frame with precast concrete panels. The Woodlands School was an experimental design project, and an early example of a purpose-built comprehensive school. Read official list description.