Board School Upper Lloyd Street Moss Side

The Moss Side School Board invites tenders for the erection of their new Board School and Caretaker’s House in Upper Lloyd Street. Plans and specifications may be seen and forms of tender and bills of quantities obtained on or after Tuesday 2 July next at the offices of the architects, Messrs Potts Son and Pickup, 34 Victoria Buildings, Victoria Street, Manchester. [Manchester Guardian 22 June 1895 page 4]

On Saturday afternoon Mr Joseph Nasmith, chairman of the Building Committee of the Moss Side School Board laid the memorial-stone of a new school in process of erection in Upper Lloyd Street. The school, which is the second to be erected by the Board, stands upon a plot of ground containing 4,160 square yards at the corner of Upper Lloyd Street and Great Western Street. The building is to be two storeys high with an extensive covered playground in the basement. The general form of each floor will be a central hall 73 feet long by 32 feet wide, with classrooms at each end averaging about 25 feet square, the two wings facing Great Western Street being utilised as entrances, staircases, teachers’ rooms and cloakrooms. The ground floor will be used for infants, accommodation being provided for 300. The first floor, for elder scholars, will accommodate 180. Provision is made in the construction of the central halls, the laying out of the grounds, and the arrangement of the caretaker’s house for the increase of the accommodation to 1,000 places, when the necessity arises, at a comparatively small cost. The school will cost between £7,000 and £8,000. The work is being carried out from the designs of Messrs Potts Son and Pickering(sic), architects, Manchester by Messrs Haynes, builders, Moss Side. [Manchester Guardian 2 December 1895 page 6]

In a limited architectural competition Woodhouse and Willoughby were appointed architects and by May 1895 were obtaining tenders for the work. However on 22 June 1895 a new scheme was tendered by Potts Son and Pickup. Reasons for the dismissal of Woodhouse and Willoughby are unclear but it would appear that Pitts Son and Pickup was responsible for the scheme as built.

Reference    Manchester Guardian 22 June 1895 page 4 - contracts
Reference    Manchester Guardian 25 June 1895 page 4 – contracts
Reference    Manchester Guardian 2 December 1895 page 6 - memorial stone