Description

LANCASTER

SD46SE REGENT STREET
1685-1/1/258 (East side)
Lancaster Girls' Grammar School

II

Girls' grammar school. 1912-14. By Henry Littler. Free
Edwardian Baroque style. Snecked sandstone with ashlar
dressings, and slate roofs. Double-depth plan with 2 parallel
ridges, and 2 cross-wings to the front, with a separate,
plainer block behind. (The further 2-storey extension 1994 is
not included.)
3 storeys and 11 bays. The symmetrical facade has a 5-bay
centre recessed between 3-bay cross-wings. Each of these has,
on the ground floor, two 3-light mullioned windows and, on the
first floor, 2 wide windows with wooden mullions and transoms
and glazing bars giving 36 panes each, all under relieving
arches; on the second floor, under an open triangular
pediment, is a small window with a wooden mullion and glazing
bars giving 12 panes. The inner bay of each cross-wing
contains an octagonal stair turret, lit at the landing levels
by a pair of mullioned windows, with lead cames giving a
diamond pattern, and capped by a tall battlemented parapet and
an octagonal cupola.
The central section, accommodating the school hall, is
recessed behind a lower, 2-storey, block which contains the
original entrance, flanked by offices. The entrance on the
first floor is approached by steps which start as a double
flight, parallel to the front, and then lead in a single
flight at right angles to the doorway; this stairway is
protected by wrought-iron railings with an overthrow at the
bottom of each flight which carries a square lantern. The
doorway has a round-headed arch, with rusticated voussoirs and
a heavy keystone, set between Ionic columns which bear an open
segmental pediment enfolding the achievement of arms of the
Borough of Lancaster.
On either side of the entrance is a canted bay with a 3-light
mullioned window, flanked by smaller windows. The 5
clerestorey windows of the hall can be seen above, with
splayed jambs into which their segmental heads with rusticated
voussoirs die. Between the first and second, and fourth and
fifth, windows rise 2 pairs of octagonal chimney stacks which
frame an octagonal louvre on the hall roof.
INTERIOR: the 2-storey hall, entered through a round-headed
doorway with a keystone, is separated by square piers from the
corridors which surround it on 3 sides and both levels. The
ceiling has a barrel-vaulted central section which is carried
on curved principal rafters rising from the tie beams, which
are supported on strongly-projecting brackets.

Listing NGR: SD4749761382

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Lancaster Girls' Grammar School at Wikipedia
• Lancaster Girls' Grammar School official website
• Wikidata Q6483179

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

• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey