The Old Grammar School (St John's Hospital Chapel), St Michael's, Coventry

Summary

Former hospital chapel, 1340s, used as a school from 1558 until 1885, with an early-C20 extension.

Description

Former hospital chapel, 1340s, used as a school from 1558 until 1885, with an early-C20 extension.

MATERIALS: constructed from red sandstone ashlar with tiled roofs.

PLAN: the building stands on the corner of Bishop Street and Hales Street, and is orientated roughly east-west, with a later wing to the north.

The former chapel, consisting of a continuous nave and chancel, occupies the length of the main range. There is an adjacent room to the north, formed from the blocked aisle and used as a school room. The north-west tower now contains a stair, providing access to the first floor of the adjacent early-C20, two-storey parish rooms, which stand in a wing adjoining the north side of the tower.

EXTERIOR: the south elevation of the building is four uneven bays separated by buttresses. The two eastern bays are narrow and light the chancel; each has a pointed arched window opening with three trefoil lights and cusped tracery. The architraves are chamfered and moulded, and there are sloping sills, installed when the lower quarters of the windows were blocked when the chapel was converted for use as a school in the mid-C16. The two western bays are wider, and bear evidence in the masonry of two blocked pointed-arched openings between the nave arcade and the south aisle (demolished in the C16). There is a wide chimneystack built in front of the right-hand arch, dating from 1852. In the left-hand arch a doorway was inserted in the mid-C20; it has a deep concrete lintel faced in sandstone. The two bays of the north elevation of the chancel largely correspond to their southern counterparts. Behind the buttress separating these bays there is a blocked doorway. The former north aisle takes the form of a lean-to structure built upon the northern façade of the main range. In the east end it has a three-light window with cusped tracery, and on the north wall is an inserted window, its depressed-arched head characteristic of the later C15, with three trefoil lights.

The east elevation, also the liturgical east end, is a gable framed by diagonal buttresses, and has a five-light window with flamboyant tracery; the sill of this window was returned to its original level in the early C20. There is a small oblong opening near the apex, providing ventilation to the loft space. The west gable, rebuilt at the end of the C18 and again in 1852, has a five-light window with cusped tracery, and a hood mould. There is a narrow trefoil lancet at the apex. To the left (north) of the west gable end is the tower: it has pointed-arched doorway beneath a hood mould, a small niche part-way up, and a small lancet vent at the apex. Its roof is pitched and surmounted by a bell turret. There is a courtyard on the northern side of the chapel.

The sandstone across the façades of the medieval building is heavily weathered, and there are various replacement blocks, replicating the original form.

The early-C20 extension stands at an angle adjacent to the north tower, turning the corner to Silver Street. It is two bays and two storeys, each with a tripartite window with pointed trefoil lancets within a chamfered surround. Those on the ground floor and in the right-hand bay of the first have flat arches. The left-hand first-floor bay rises into a gabled dormer and has a four-centred arch window opening. Windows have diamond leaded glazing. There is a projecting storey course, and the ground-floor windows have hood moulds.

INTERIOR: the nave and chancel of the main chapel are a continuous space beneath a lofty barrel-vaulted ceiling, replaced in the 1960s and recently restored. The scissor-braced trusses to the pitched roof are understood to survive in the loft. The walls are bare to the sandstone ashlar. Variations in the masonry show that the bottom quarters of the windows have been blocked in the chancel; that to the east end was returned to its original level in the early C20. The chancel windows are Decorated Gothic, original to the building.

The C14 choir stalls taken from Whitefriars Friary line three sides of the chancel and part of the north wall of the nave. There are four incomplete ranges, cut to fit the chancel, comprising forty-six seats separated by arm rests, with corresponding benches with panelled and traceried fronts and poppyhead ends. Void mortises suggest the seat backs were originally mounted with a screen. There is a reading desk formed at the centre of the east range, with a traceried panel with a wide ogee arch and tracery spandrels. The seat backs bear centuries of the pupils’ incised graffiti, and one 2m section of the benches is carved with deep channels and pits for marbles.

On the either side of the nave there are two blocked arches into the former aisles. The arches are pointed and chamfered; the capitals to the supporting piers have been cut back flush with the walls. On the south side a fireplace was built into the eastern blocked arch in 1852. It has a moulded stone chimneypiece, and above, within the arch, is a bricked-up panel with a timber lintel. In the western blocked archway, a doorway was added in the 1960s; it has a deep concrete lintel faced in sandstone. On the north wall, there is a pointed-arched doorway through the western blocked arch into the tower, understood to have been created in the C16 when the chapel was converted to a school. A narrow lancet doorway leads from roughly the middle of the wall into the former north aisle. A second narrow doorway, which has been blocked and is concealed by the raised choir stalls, leads diagonally from the chancel to exit behind a buttress on the north elevation. The west window dates from the 1852 remodelling of the gable end. It has five pointed trefoil lights and flowing tracery.

The room within the former north aisle has painted stone walls. The east end has a three-light window with geometric tracery, probably C15, which, like the chancel windows, is blocked at the bottom. Towards the base of the wall there are fragments of masonry suggesting a blocked opening. The north wall has a Tudor-arched window with three trefoil lights, characteristic of the later C15 or C16. The roof has had a later ceiling inserted, which interrupts the apex of the east window, and has two cross-beams with joists between. Beneath the doorway into the main chapel is a pit, covered by glass, which shows the original floor level of the room, and a stone piscina in the wall. On the south wall a brick chimneystack was inserted in 1852. The fireplace has been blocked and infilled with modern brick. The west end of the room is enclosed by a glazed timber screen within a pointed arch opening, which fits stylistically with the mid-C19 phase of development.

On the ground floor of the tower is the main entrance, concealed behind another Victorian half-glazed timber screen. A staircase rises to provide access to the first floor of the C20 extension. It is a robust construction with moulded handrail, moulded and chamfered balusters, and newels capped with a tapered finial. At the top of the stair part of the infilling masonry to the blocked arcade archway has been removed, revealing the chamfered opening lined with finely-moulded stone. This area has a sloping ceiling supported by timber cross-beams and a purlin with windbraces beneath.

The early-C20 extension is a single cell on each floor, and has been dry-lined, leaving only the stone window surrounds exposed. The roof is supported on timber trusses with a braced collar and steel tension rods.

History

The Old Grammar School, Hales Street, is a medieval building that was originally the chapel of the Hospital of St John, which was used as a school from 1558 until 1885.

The Hospital of St John was founded in 1155 by Laurence, Prior of Coventry. The chapel is the last surviving remnant of the complex, which once extended from Bishop Street on the west to Swanswell Pool, to the east. Archaeological remains suggest that there was an earlier chapel on the site, likely to date from the point of the hospital’s foundation; this is thought to have been replaced by the present building in the 1340s. The new chapel had an un-aisled chancel of two bays, an aisled nave, and a tower to the north-west. In 1522 it is recorded as having had between 24 and 30 beds, with an overseeing priest or master, three under priests and five women in charge of provision for the poor and travellers seeking lodgings. It was maintained by gifts and endowments from local benefactors.

In 1545 the hospital buildings were acquired from the Crown by John Hales for the sum of £400, on the condition that he found a free school in the King’s name. Hales, at that time Clerk of the Hanaper under Henry VIII, had been appointed to undertake the dissolution of Coventry’s monastic institutions. He first founded a school at Whitefriars Carmelite Friary in 1545, which in 1558 was moved to the former hospital chapel, along with a number of C14 oak choir stalls from the friary. It is likely that the south aisle of the hospital chapel was demolished at this point, and the tower truncated. The conversion to a school involved raising the floor, blocking up the lower quarters of the windows, blocking the arcade arches of the nave and introducing a barrel-vaulted ceiling to the nave and chancel.

A library was established at the school in 1601. It was located in a wing running south from the west end of the nave; the masonry ground floor may have been part of the earlier hospital, though the timber-framed upper story is understood to have been purpose-built in 1602. This wing was demolished in 1794 as a result of the widening of the Burges, now Bishop Street. The west gable end was rebuilt at around the same time: an illustration from 1802 shows a Gothick-style gable end with an embattled parapet flanked by turrets. In 1848 Hales Street was constructed, cutting through the gardens to the south of the building, and demolishing the usher’s house. Soon afterwards the west gable was rebuilt in its current, more conventional form. The fireplaces in the main hall and room to the north also date from this period.

The Whitefriars choir stalls were installed around three sides of the chancel to be used as desks by the pupils. There are four incomplete ranges, cut to fit the chancel, comprising forty-six seats and corresponding benches with panelled and traceried fronts and poppyhead ends. A reading desk was formed at the centre of the east range, not thought to be part of the original stalls. The stalls are graffitied with the names of numerous former pupils, and deep channels and pits are carved into the bench, understood to be the framework for marbles or pinball. In the mid-C18 20 of the stalls’ misericords were removed and installed in the nearby Holy Trinity Church, where they remain. When the school closed in the 1860s 15 further misericords were removed; most of these are now in the city’s Herbert Gallery. Only two now survive in the Old Grammar School (see Tracy, 1997).

The list of the school’s distinguished alumni is long, and includes lexicographer Thomas Holyoake (1566x73–1653); Sir William Dugdale (1605-1686), author of ‘The Antiquities of Warwickshire’; Ralph Bathurst (1619/20-1704), President of Trinity College, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford and Chaplain to the King and Dean of Wells; Thomas Sharp (1770-1841), author of The Antiquities of Coventry; and Dr Arthur Samuel Peake (1865-1929), theologian and biblical scholar.

The school moved to new, purpose-built premises on Warwick Road in 1885. The former chapel was put up for sale and was bought by public subscription, and given to Holy Trinity Parish Church for use as a church hall. In the early C20 a two-storey Gothic extension was added to the north-west of the chapel for parish use, and the stair constructed within the tower. The sill of the east window was lowered to its original level.

Coventry was subject to heavy bombardment in the Second World War and the former chapel suffered severe damage, which was not fully repaired until the 1960s. The complex underwent a comprehensive restoration in 2014-2015. 31 Silver Street, adjacent to the north, has also been restored and is incorporated into the complex, forming an entrance to the complex and additional office space.

Reasons for Listing

The Old Grammar School is listed at Grade I, for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* a C14 hospital chapel, converted, in the C16, to a free school, which retains a significant proportion of the historic fabric from these primary phases of use;
* built from local materials, and retaining C14 elevations with lancet windows and tracery, and a C15 window in the former north aisle;
* C16 alterations remain evident in the fabric, and illustrate the conversion of the building to a school;
* a collection of C14 choir stalls from the nearby Whitefriars Carmelite friary were adapted and installed in the building for use as desks.

Historic interest:

* a rare survival of a medieval hospital building, a common institution before the Reformation;
* an early example of a school which remained in use until the late C19, established by John Hales, a prominent figure in the dismantling of Coventry’s monastic institutions, under Henry VIII;
* the school’s alumni includes a number of distinguished historic figures.

External Links

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