Building Name

Enlargement of Withington Parish Schools.

Date
1868
District/Town
Withington, Manchester
County/Country
GMCA, England
Work
New Build
Contractor
T. Darnbrough

WITHINGTON PARISH SCHOOL - The enlargement of the Withington Parish School, which has for some years been dismally wanted, will shortly be opened, the accommodation being utterly inadequate to the needs the increasing parish. The old school consisted merely of one apartment, 40 feet by 30 feet, with a small class-room at the back. The school, as altered, comprises one room, to be used as a mixed school, 70 feet by 20 feet.  Adjoining it, at the eastern end of the south side, is the infant school, 30 feet by 20 feet, and at the rear is a class-room, 20 feet by 14 feet, with a door common to both mixed and infant schoolrooms. At the north-east corner of the block of buildings is a fuel-store and boiler house, approached under cover from the school-room. The girls and infants have one common entrance the north-east and the boys another porch, at the south-west. This last named porch, being in a conspicuous position, with its door turned to the front, is that which is used by visitors, and by the parishioners, on public occasions. The playgrounds are behind, away from the public road, divided by sufficiently high wall. Suitable desks, seats, and galleries have been provided for the several rooms, according to Government regulations. Lighting is amply provided for, and ventilation also, by means, principally, of dormers in the roof, which very effectually carry off the heated and vitiated air. All the rooms are warmed by open fire-places. The old gas-fittings are still made to serve for the infant school and class-room, but the large room is lighted by new and effective, though not expensive, pendants, made by Thomason and Co., of Birmingham. Care has been taken that there shall be plenty of wall space opposite the children's seats for maps, diagrams, etc. The architectural style was to great extant settled beforehand, as the architects had necessarily to follow the lead of the old building, which had been designed in not-so-very-bad quasi Norman style ; much superior, by the way, to the caricature of Norman architecture, set forth the in adjoining church. The south-west view of the building, now altered, is at least somewhat effective and picturesque. The most prominent west gable contains a large rose window, filled with quaintly designed, moulded, and chamfered stone tracery, and beneath it is an inscription stone and ornamental brick panels. In the angle formed by the gable of the infant school and the side of the mixed school, comes the principal porch before referred to, and grouping with it is a pretty brick chimney the gable, high up, containing a two-lighted window. From about the middle of the long ridge of roof rises an open timber framed belfry, with slated roof, surmounted by metal vane. The row of semi-circular headed windows, filled with partially-obscured glass, lets the south light into the mixed school without admitting the direct rays. The large circular window is filled with tinted glass of two or three colours, arranged in patterns. The accommodation of the schools is now not far from double what it was before the alterations, which have been economically and carefully carried out by Mr. T. Darnbrough, builder, of Rusholme, from the designs and under the superintendence of Messrs Medland and Henry Taylor, architects, of Manchester. [Manchester Courier Tuesday 12 January 1869, page 6].

Reference    Building News 19 June 1868 page 426 - tenders
Reference    Building News 26 June 1868 page 441  - tenders
Reference    Manchester Courier Tuesday 12 January 1869, page 6