Former workhouse school, now hospital wards,
offices and services rooms. 1866. By Charles Lynam of
Stoke-on-Trent. Converted to old people’s accommodation late
C19, and to hospital wards C20. Various later C19 and C20
alterations and minor additions. Red brick with ashlar and blue
brick dressings and Welsh slate roofs. Renaissance Revival
style.
Symmetrical T-plan, with central administration
and staff block flanked by double-range classroom and dormitory
blocks. At the rear, a spinal range containing dining room,
infants’ schoolrooms, dayroom and dining room. Service
buildings, mainly single storey, on the south side of the spinal
range.
Front range, 2 and 3 storeys plus basements,
9/3/9 bays, has plinth, sill band, buttresses between bays, and
shouldered coped gables. Windows to this range are mainly stone
cross-mullioned, many with their original margin-pane glazing.
Projecting centrepiece has a moulded Tudor arched entrance with
glazed screens and double doors. Above, a sculpted coat of arms,
flanked by cross casements, and above again, a 4-light window.
Side bays have canted 2-storey bay windows, and above, 4-light
windows with single lights in gables above. Flanking ranges have
regular fenestration with minor variations reflecting the
original uses of the rooms. Ground floor windows have blue brick
relieving arches. Righr range has in the eighth bay a square
flat roofed porch, c1940, altered to a bay window. Double gable
returns have external stacks and similar fenestration to the
main front. At the rear of the side ranges, former cloisters
divided by buttresses, with Tudor arched openings and blue brick
heads, now infilled and fitted with plain sashes. Above, in each
bay, 12/12 glazing bar sashes.
At the junction of the centrepiece with the
spinal range, semicircular corner stair turrets with 12/12
glazing bar sashes on the lower floors, and corbelled
projections above, with small glazing bar windows. Spinal range,
2 storeys plus basements, 5 bays, is linked to centrepiece by a
single-bay corridor, 2 storeys. Openings, divided by buttresses,
are blocked and modified on basement and ground floor levels.
First floor mainly retains original 12/12 sashes. At the east
end of the spinal range, former infants’ day room, single
storey, with buttresses on the north side, 2 large through-eaves
dormers with cross-mullioned windows. East gable has symmetrical
fenestration in the same style. Service range to north, 2
storeys, has plain fenestration. Service ranges to south, single
storey, L-plan, are plain and have plain sashes.
INTERIOR: Central entrance hall has chamfered
Tudor arched openings on each side. In the stair turrets, open
well stone stairs with iron stick balusters. Basement has brick
groin vaults, and retains large late C19 cooking range. On the
first floor, a wooden stair to the attics, with stick balusters
and ramped handrail. Attics have chamfered Tudor cross-arches
and unusual strutted roof trusses. Side ranges have on the
ground floor arch braces to cross beams, and various C20
partitions. On the first floor, arch braces, corbels and wall
shafts to principal rafter roof. This floor, formerly
dormitories, has C20 partitions and suspended ceiling. Spinal
range has on the first floor an arch braced roof carried on
central chamfered wooden posts, and C20 suspended ceiling.
HISTORY:
Workhouse schools were used to segregate children from adult
paupers with the intention that they would be educated into
socially desirable habits and cease to be paupers. They were a
major development in social policy. Stoke-on-Trent had one of
the earliest such schools, and Block A was an extension and
development of the service it provided. This scheme was not
followed in all workhouses, and surviving examples of such
schools buildings are rare.
