Historic building, education. Catholic secondary school. Originally built in 1877/78 to the designs of Frederick H Pownall as the Sacred Heart Convent girls school.
No CA.
LLHA0218.
Catholic secondary school. Originally built in 1877/78 to the designs of Frederick H Pownall as the Sacred Heart Convent girls school.
The Chapel was added in 1879 and an east wing was added in 1901. It became Cardinal Newman Secondary School in 1972 when all Catholic secondary schools in the area were amalgamated.
A dignified collegiate building of red brick and stone dressings with a strong sense of place. Neo Jacobean in style with a High Gothic style Chapel.
Also of interest is the separate building to the north known as the Bishops House, dating from c1900 to 1910 and which originally housed a smaller school for poor children.
The school sits within a substantial open setting of playing fields and trees and of special note are the high flint walls that enclose the site, particularly to the Upper Drive and Old Shoreham Road. These may pre-date the school, at least in part.
ii. A large private church school building and chapel of the late Victorian period exhibiting stylistic tendencies and materials typical of the period but with a particular quality, set in extensive original grounds.
iv. A strong design by a notable architect of the period, extended and altered but retaining clear aesthetic interest.
ii. The building illustrates the key role that private church-led education played in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the historic interest of the Upper Drive to Catholicism in Brighton & Hove.
ii. The building’s scale, architectural distinctiveness and open setting make it the most notable feature in the Upper Drive and, together with lengthy flint boundary walling, helps to give this road its unique character.
ii. An unusual – and unusually large – locally surviving example of a purpose-built late Victorian Catholic convent school and chapel and a legacy of the role of Catholicism in Brighton & Hove.
i. The school and chapel retain a sense of completeness in terms of their architectural design and open setting, despite later extensions and alterations.
ii. The building remains in Catholic school use.
Pre-2015.
