Board School, Lyon, Street, Ardwick

The school buildings in Ardwick are being erected on the site of the old Bank Meadow Wesleyan Schools.  The cost of the buildings is estimated at £7,540, and the site has cost £2,460, the total outlay thus being £10,000. The Board experienced considerable difficulty in obtaining a suitable site in this neighbourhood. The ground ultimately bought, upon which several cottages and a courtyard stood, is narrow, and the architect has been obliged to provide playgrounds by sinking the site and raising the ground floor of the schools four feet above the street level. The schools will be divided into four departments. On the ground floor will be the junior and senior infants' school, entered from the centre of the building, each having a main room 47 feet by 30 feet, and classrooms 22 feet  by 18 feet, with ample cloakrooms, having direct communication by an easy staircase with the playgrounds. The girls' and the boys' departments will be on the first floor. Each will have a main room 68 feet by 30 feet, and two classrooms 19 feet by 16 feet, with cloakrooms adjoining the staircase landing. The girls will enter at the north end of the buildings, and the boys at the south end. The school will accommodate 900 children. The building will be of a plain, substantial character, the wall below the base line being faced with stock bricks, and the upper portion with picked common bricks, relieved in places with stock bricks and moulded red brick strings. The lower windows will have circular-headed arches, with ornamental stock bricks, the upper windows having moulded stone heads, which also will form part of the eaves cornice. In the centre of the building will be two large gables, flanked on either side by smaller ones. The works are being carried out by Messrs Wilson, Toft, and Huntley, builders, City Road. In this case, also, the architect is Mr. Henry Lord, of John Dalton-street.  [Manchester Weekly Times 6 March 1880 page 7]