Description
This information is taken from the statutory List as it was in 2001 and may not be up to date.
MIDDLETON
1483/2/19 RECTORY STREET 28-OCT-03 MIDDLETON (West side) FORMER INFANT SCHOOL BUILDING , ATTACH ED BOUNDARY WALLS, RAILINGS, GATEPIERS AND ARCHED ENTRANCE GATEWAY AT FORMER DURNFORD HIGH SCHOOL SITE (Formerly listed as: RECTORY STREET MIDDLETON DURNFORD BUILDING AT DURNFORD HIGH SCH OOL, ATTACHED BOUNDARY WALLS, GATE PIE RS AND SIDE ENTRANCE) (Formerly listed as: RECTORY STREET MIDDLETON DURNFORD BUILDING AT DURNFORD HIGH SCH OOL)
II
School, with attached boundary walls, railings, gate piers and side entrance structure. 1908-10, with late C20 additions. By Edgar Wood and J.H.Sellars. Brick with Portland stone dressings and a reinforced concrete flat roof.
PLAN : Surviving element of former T-plan school originally the stem section of the complex. Central hall with classrooms to north, south and east sides.
EXTERIOR: Single storey range, formerly a projection to the east of the main building, entered from the west. 6 bay central section, with lower 3-bay end range to east. South elevation with tall, multi pane windows below coped parapet. A taller inner wall with render finish defines extent of the original central hall. At the east end of the hall, and elaborate tower-like chimney with pilastered corners.
INTERIOR: Not inspected, but thought to retain original doors and partitions. Attached boundary walls enclose front and south sides of the former school site. The central part of the main frontage wall is of red brick with a thin stone coping. Flanking this area are sections of low plinth walling with intermediate piers and sections of ornamental cast iron railings with decorative upper panels. At the south east corner, entrance gateway with angled ashlar gatepiers with ramped cappings. Plain railings on plinth walling extends westwards to taller rendered side entrance wall incorporating an arched entrance gateway with a pair of cast iron gates, and enclosing a flight of covered stone steps leading up to the former playground area.
HISTORY: Durnford Street School was one of 2 pioneering Municipal Schools (with Elm Street School, q.v.) built by the local Education Committee to establish the new standards of hygiene and teaching practice advocated in the Balfour Education Act of 1902. The school was designed to accommodate 1000 infant, junior and senior children. Consent for the demolition of the Junior and Senior School area was granted by the Local Planning Authority in May 2002.
The surviving parts of an innovative and stylistically-advanced school complex, designed by an architect of national repute, Edgar Wood, in which he explored the use of reinforced concrete and flat roof construction. SOURCES: Archer, J H G. " Edgar Wood (1860 - 1935 )" Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society , vol. 73-4, 1963-4. NBR Historic Buildings Report. " Durnford Street School, Rectory Street, Middleton ,Greater Manchester " December 1995.
Listing NGR: SD8671406308
