Description

757/0/10083 MAGDALEN ROAD
14-AUG-06 St Leonards
(East side)
Gate lodge and gateway to the former C
onvent of the Holy Child Jesus

II
Former school and attached entrance arch. Foundation stone for the School laid in 1849, the entrance arch built in 1850, both designed by William Wilkinson Wardell for the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. Both are in Gothic style. Both are of coursed stone rubble with ashlar dressings and the former school has a slate roof.

DESCRIPTION: The school is of two storeys with gables to west and east. The west side has two gables with two arched first floor casement windows and a cross-shaped ventilation slit. The ground floor has no windows and an angled corner, probably to avoid damage by traffic. The north side has four ogee-arched casements in rectangular moulded stone surrounds and a lean-to porch with arched doorcase. The east side has one ogee-arched casement in a rectangular surround to the right of the first floor and a cambered headed opening and narrow pointed arched doorcase below. The left side gable has a large two-light lancet in an ogee arch with pointed arched niches flanking and above and an ogee-arched window below.

The entrance gateway is a attached to the former school at the north western end. it comprises a central carriage arch flanked by two pedestrian arches. There is a central stepped parapet with gabled stone roof, Coat of Arms to west and blank niche to east, surmounted by a cross-shaped saddlestone. Below there is a tall arched central entrance with granite curbing stones and iron gates with elaborate ironmongery and additional wooden panels to the lower part. There are buttresses on either side of the central arch and arched side pedestrian entrances with iron gates and wooden panels behind.

HISTORY: The gateway and gatehouse are situated on the western boundary of this large convent site which was originally purchased in 1834 by the Rev. Jones with a bequest of £10,000 from Lady Stanley of Puddington. In 1848 nuns of the newly formed teaching order, the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, moved into the convent. The architect William Wilkinson Wardell was employed to complete the convent building and design a Girls Poor School and entrance in the boundary walls which had been erected in the middle of the 1830s. The foundation stone for the Girls Poor School was laid in 1849 and the entrance arch built in 1850. the Girls Poor School is now known as the Gatehouse. Wardell also built a presbytery on the site in 1856 and at about the same time a Training college to the south of the Girls Poor School. In 1874, the Society of the Holy Child Jesus moved to Mayfield and in 1976 the site was bought for use as a summer language school in which use it has remained ever since.

STATEMENT OF IMPORTANCE: The Gatehouse was built circa 1849 as a Catholic Girls Poor School by the distinguished Catholic architect William Wilkinson Wardell for the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. It is a good quality Gothic style stone building which has been very little altered externally. The teaching order was founded in 1846 and was the first new native congregation of women founded in England since the Reformation. This building therefore has historic interest in post-Reformation Catholic education in England and as a very early school set up by this order. The attached Gothic style gateway was built in 1850 by the same architect and is a good quality stone entrance gateway with central carriage arch and side pedestrian arches of special architectural interest. Both buildings are part of a group of listed buildings at the former Convent of the Holy Child Jesus.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26671089

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

• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)