Historic building, education. Thematic Survey – Brighton Board Schools. Part of City College, previously expansion of classrooms for Brighton Board Schools.
North Laine CA.
LLHA0215.
The 1870 Education Act established a form of universal and compulsory education at the primary level in England & Wales. School Boards were established to deliver this education.
Historic England has stated of Board Schools in a national context that “collectively they amount to one of the most important campaigns of public building ever undertaken in this country” (Listing Selection Guide: Education Buildings, April 2011). The Brighton School Board was established immediately after that Act.
Thomas Simpson was appointed as the Board’s surveyor/architect and was joined by his son Gilbert Murray Simpson as the partnership Thomas Simpson & Son from 1890. The partnership also designed some schools for the Hove School Board, after 1876, and for the Brighton & Preston School Board, after 1878. Their schools span the period 1870 to 1903.
The earlier buildings are all of red brick with large white-painted windows, in the Queen Anne Revival style. The later ones bring in limited use of terracotta, stone and pebbledash and incorporate decorative chimneys and turrets in an Edwardian Free Style. The only surviving Hove Board School is in Connaught Road (1884) and is grade II listed.
In Brighton, 9 Board Schools currently remain and 4 of these are grade II listed:
All are by Simpson. The other 5 (all by Simpson) are:
The York Place School lies within the Valley Gardens Conservation Area but none of the others are in conservation areas.
The York Place School was extended over the ensuing decades as part of the Pelham Street Schools. As part of this expansion, the Gloucester Building was built in 1908 in Trafalgar Court, apparently to provide 2 additional classrooms for the infant's department.
The architect of this building is not known but it shares a similar architectural language and materials with the Simpson schools.
It is now part of City College.
i. The Brighton Board Schools represent a consistent design approach and use of materials that is very clearly of its time and place.
ii. The schools are generally good quality examples of state school design of the period and represent remaining surviving examples of a once more common type, but with variations in plan form.
iv. Thomas Simpson was a notable architect of the period in a local regional context.
v. The school buildings have clear aesthetic interest derived from their conscious design by Simpson.
ii. The Brighton Board School embarked on a major school-building programme, bringing education to even the poorest children. The present-day appearance of the school buildings has not generally compromised this interest.
i. The Gloucester Building makes a very positive contribution to the townscape of Trafalgar Court and adds to the varied mix of styles and uses that is such a positive part of the character of the North Laine Conservation Area.
ii. There are known to have been 13 purpose-built Board Schools in Brighton, designed by Simpson or Simpson & Son and of these 9 remain.
i. The Gloucester Building remains intact externally.
2015.
