Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 27 October 2021 to remove incorrect source details and to reformat the text to current standards

SO9422NE
630-1/9/1045

CHELTENHAM
DUNALLEY STREET (west side)
Dunalley Street Primary School

II
Primary school. Designed 1857 by Henry Dangerfield, Borough Surveyor. Red brick with black engineering brick patterns and limestone ashlar dressings, also with wall and corner buttresses; stone-coped gabled Welsh slate roof.

PLAN: planned with east-west range having gable facing onto Dunalley Street and slightly lower block extending north and facing Dunalley Street with two ranges at right angles extending westwards to the rear of this block. Tudor Gothic style.

EXTERIOR: east elevation facing Dunalley Street has gable end of east-west range to south end: this has five-light transomed full-height Middle Gothic window above scrolled plaque with school's name, flanked by diaper work and surmounted by banding framing arch; the lower right-hand range has full height transomed windows set in parapeted wall breaking eaves course. Away from Dunalley Street, the left-hand (south) elevation to the main gabled range has tall segmental-arched windows in wall which similarly breaks eaves line, and the right-hand (north) elevation has two Gothic dormers, one to left altered by inserted C20 window above mid C20 porch.

INTERIOR: glazing-bar windows and matchboard partitions serve as dividers between classrooms. Roof, originally open to view, is supported on C13 Gothic-style naturalistic corbels and its principal elements are composed of glued laminated timbers, through-bolted in order to provide additional strength. It has arched braces supporting tie-beam, with decorative cast-iron spandrels, surmounted by king post with curved braces to principal rafters.

HISTORICAL NOTE: this building was opened as the British School in February 1859, and presents an architecturally accomplished elevation to Dunalley Street. It is remarkable in its national context for the rare use of glued laminated timber for the 1850s, a period of significant experimentation in the use of constructional techniques, and especially their application to wide-span roofs.

(Journal of the Institute of Wood Studies: Booth LG: The Development of Laminated Timber Arch Structures in early C19: Vol 5 (No.5): July 1971; Drawings at Gloucestershire County Records Office; Cheltenham Looker-On: 12.02.1859).

Listing NGR: SO9486122940

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26398265

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)