Anderton Park School, Caretaker's House and Victorian Railings, Sparkbrook, Birmingham

Description

997/0/10513 DENNIS ROAD
20-JAN-11 Anderton Park School, Caretaker's Hous
e and Victorian railings

II
School, built in 1896 by Martin and Chamberlain.

MATERIALS: Red brick, with steeply-pitched red tiled roofs and brick and terracotta decoration. Four brick stacks, three being zig-zag in outline. The majority of the wooden windows in the older parts of the building are original, some with modifications.

PLAN: Occupying a rectangular footprint on a north-south axis, with projecting entrances, the building originally housed the junior school to north and infants' school to south, each section having classrooms arranged around a hall. One range, to south, is of two storeys, the rest of the building being single-storey. A tall ventilation tower - designed to serve the 'plenum' system of forced air circulation - stands towards the south of the building. Extensions were added to the north-west and south-west corners some time between the publication of the 1904 and 1916 OS maps. On the west front, two classrooms destroyed by bombing have been replaced by later C20 single-storey flat-roofed additions, and there is another small addition to south-east; these later additions are not of special interest. A caretaker's house, contemporary with the school, stands to north-west.

EXTERIOR: All four elevations are asymmetrical, with repeated gables subject to variations in height and plane. The arrangement and decoration of the gable ends is fairly consistent throughout the building. In the original single-storey classrooms, paired three-centred windows with moulded brick surrounds are connected by stopped terracotta hood moulds, each window having a sloping apron of stepped terracotta with volutes to either end. Above the windows are three roundels of gauged red brick with latticed centres providing ventilation, between bands of dog-tooth and dentilated brickwork; a dentil band follows the eaves. These features are subject to some variation; the gables of extensions added in the early C20 replace the roundels with decorative brickwork and ventilation slits, and there are recessed half-timbered gables. The ventilation tower, taking the form of a belfry in the Queen Anne Revival style, rises at the northern edge of the southern, two-storey range, and is visible from all sides. Supported internally on cast iron columns, the base of the tower is of brick, with angle buttresses terminating in engaged onion finials; the next stage is an octagonal louvered shaft, the angles marked by consoles and colonettes and surmounted by curving wrought iron openwork panels; the tiled roof then narrows to a lantern with a lead cupola of elongated onion shape with a zig-zag decoration. The entrance is in the two-storey range on the east front; this five-bay range contains three gable ends, the arched doorway being placed off centre. The right-hand gable is set back, and here, the openings of the upper windows extend downwards, creating recesses within which the lower windows are contained; to the left of this range, a single-storey flanking wall has been pierced by a C20 tripartite window. The right-hand part of this frontage and the north, west and south frontages, consist of the original single-storey gabled classrooms, the scheme being occasionally interrupted by the C20 interventions.

INTERIOR: Internally, the main hall runs north-south along the centre of the northern part of the building, with the small, or infants', hall running west-east across the southern part of the building. Both halls are spanned by cast-iron rounded arches with pierced decoration, the large hall having five and the small hall having two. The halls are accessed through symmetrically placed double doors, giving access to classrooms and corridors. The school retains much original joinery throughout the ground floor: corridors and classrooms have boarded dado panelling with moulded rails, and doors are largely original, with chamfered rails and muntins, most being glazed, and surmounted by fanlights. A number of the classrooms have original fixed tall cupboards with sloping tops, some tambour-fronted, others glazed. The two classrooms of the north-west early C20 extension are accessed by a passage created by a glazed screen; in these rooms the dado is lined with brown glazed tiles with a decorative rail, and in one room the mounting dado line suggests the former presence of banked seating. The majority of the rooms retain their original wooden flooring. False ceilings have been inserted in all the classrooms. The upper storey, to south, is accessed by a staircase with moulded starting-newel and chamfered balusters. This floor, which formerly provided facilities for home economics - the cast iron range has been removed - has been largely subdivided; the remaining large room contains a wooden chimney piece.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: The asymmetrically gabled caretaker's house is also of red brick, with replacement windows, the door sheltered by a tiled canopy. The decorative treatment is a reduced version of that applied to the school: the windows are single rather than paired and (with one exception) lack the volutes to their aprons; there is a single brick roundel, in the principal gable. Internally, the house retains its staircase, and panelled doors, as found in the school.

Cast iron railings set in triangular copings run along the east and north sides of the building, marking the original boundary of the school grounds. An original gate is incorporated on the east front, marking the separation between the northern and southern sections of the building, and at the north-east corner of the site is a pair of red brick gate piers.

HISTORY: The Birmingham School Board was brought into being by the Elementary Education Act of 1870; the Act, which empowered school boards to create new schools and pay the fees of the poorest children, was largely the result of campaigning by the Birmingham-centred National Education League. By 1902, when the Education Act abolished school boards and passed the responsibility for education to local authorities, the Birmingham School Board had built fifty-one new schools, all but four of which were designed by Martin and Chamberlain - from 1900 Martin and Martin - appointed Architect to the Board in 1870.

Martin and Chamberlain was formed by John Henry Chamberlain (1831-83) and William Martin (1828-1900) in 1864. Following Chamberlain's death, Martin was joined by his son, Frederick William Martin (1859-1917), who took over much of the design work. The board schools operated as focal points within each district, serving as symbols of municipal pride and civic achievement; Martin and Chamberlain created a house style for these buildings, characterised by red-brick construction, tall ventilation towers, proliferation of gables, and decorative use of tiles and terracotta, sometimes displaying naturalistic forms. Chamberlain, the leading creative force within the practice until his death, believed that beautiful and well-planned school architecture might offer children some compensation for drab, cramped homes, and in 1894 the Pall Mall Gazette commented that, `In Birmingham you may generally recognise a Board School by its being the best building in the neighbourhood'.

The school now known as Anderton Park School was opened in 1896 as Dennis Road School. Originally divided into junior and infant sections, the school was designed to accommodate 1,020 pupils. The school was successful from the first; the Inspector's report of 1897 commended progress, noting that 'For beauty of design and convenience of working the school is worthy of the highest admiration'. In 1939 the school became a senior boys' school, with attached junior and infants' school. Bombing in 1940 destroyed two classrooms, which have since been replaced - small additions had already been made to the school early in the century. The school became Anderton Park Junior and Infant School in 1963. In 1985 part of Dennis Road, running to the east of the school, was incorporated into the school grounds.

SOURCES:
OS maps published 1904, 1916 and 1938
Ballard, P, (ed), Birmingham's Victorian and Edwardian Architects, (2009)
Cooper, K, Birmingham Board Schools: A study of Martin and Chamberlains' work for the Birmingham School Board (unpublished PhD thesis, 1980)
English Heritage, Birmingham Board Schools Report, (1991)
Franklin, SD, A History of Dennis Road/Anderton Park School, 1896-1996, (1998)
Harwood, E, England's Schools: History, architecture and adaptation, (2010)
The Victorian Society, The Best Building in the Neighbourhood? Martin and Chamberlain and the Birmingham Board Schools (1968)
Thornton, R, Victorian Buildings of Birmingham, (2006)

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION:
Anderton Park School is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architect: as a handsome later school by Martin and Chamberlain, one of the leading architectural practices of late-Victorian Birmingham
* Historical: as one of twenty-eight surviving schools built by the Birmingham School Board, which together form one of the most important groups of board schools in the country
* Intactness: as a notably complete example of a school of this type, in which the overall external appearance and internal plan are largely preserved, together with the unusual and elaborate ventilation tower
* Design: for its thoughtful planning, characteristic of the Birmingham board schools, with classrooms clustered around two central halls
* Design: for its striking decorative scheme, making restrained use of brick and terracotta

Reasons for Listing

Anderton Park School, built for the Birmingham School Board as Dennis Road School in 1896, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architect: as a handsome later school by Martin and Chamberlain, one of the leading architectural practices of late-Victorian Birmingham
* Historical: as one of twenty-eight surviving schools built by the Birmingham School Board, which together form one of the most important groups of board schools in the country
* Intactness: as a notably complete example of a school of this type, in which the overall external appearance and internal plan are largely preserved, together with the unusual and elaborate ventilation tower
* Design: for its thoughtful planning, characteristic of the Birmingham board schools, with classrooms clustered around two central halls
* Design: for its striking decorative scheme, making restrained use of brick and terracotta

External Links

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