Wellingborough: Grade II Listed former Victoria Junior School

Image: © Nigel Cox Taken: 14 Jun 2019

This is the Gordon Street aspect of the 1895 built Grade II Listed former Victoria Junior School, currently boarded up and out of use. The adjacent former Infants' School is also included in the Listing. According to the Historic England website the reason for the Listing is that "the buildings are an impressive example of a late C19 provincial board school, with three handsome street frontages, two cupolas and a striking plenum tower. The design was by Walter Talbot Brown, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects with a number of listed buildings to his name. The high-quality Elizabethan and Jacobean decorations owe their inspiration to his collaboration with J A Gotch on Architecture of the Renaissance in England, published in 1891-4. Both the junior and infants schools have double-height central halls with elaborate interiors, that of the junior school being particularly fine. The schools are remarkably unaltered and retain all their original features including panelling, glazed screens, cupboards, doors and windows. The quality of craftsmanship and materials reflects the wealth and civic pride generated by the Northamptonshire boot and shoe industry. The schools are still surrounded by their original context of terraced housing and boot and shoe factory buildings." From the Historic England website again, "The octagonal plenum tower (on the left in this view) has a top stage of the tower of eight round-arched openings with banded stone and red brick columns in between, carved stone festoons and cherubs below, and a stone dentil course above. The tower is surmounted by a banded stone and red brick spire with a miniature stone lantern." And again from the Historic England website, "The wooden bell-cote (on the right in this view) is octagonal and has a balustrade and dentilated eaves. It is surmounted by a lead-clad cupola and spire and sits on a square lead-clad base." It is not known by the photographer what the future holds for this building. Evidently it is not fit for purpose for its original use any more, and there are details online of a planning proposal from several years ago to convert it into residential apartments.

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