Poplars Hall / The Dining Hall At Hutton Poplars / Swimming Pool At Hutton Poplars

Description

This information is taken from the statutory List as it was in 2001 and may not be up to date.

BRENTWOOD

TQ69NW RAYLEIGH ROAD, Hutton 723-1/6/555 (North side) 20/02/76 Poplars Hall (Formerly Listed as: RAYLEIGH ROAD, Hutton The Dining Hall at Hutton Poplars)

II

Formerly known as: Swimming Pool at Hutton Poplars RAYLEIGH ROAD Hutton. Reception hall, originally part of Hutton Residential School. 1906. By Poplar Board of Guardians, architects Holman and Goodram. Restored 1990-1 by Brentwood District Council, following disuse and vandalism. Red brick with stone dressings, peg-tiled roof. Plan rectangular, of hall with lounge and service rooms behind to W. Aligned N-S, 200m NNE of Brentwood Adult Education Centre (not listable). EXTERIOR: E front elevation: 5 bays, brick Ionic pilasters, frieze of decorative gauged and rubbed brickwork, leaf and Tudor rose design. Central projecting porch of original entrance with swept coping, arched entrance with 'Gibbs' surround, inner door renewed copy of original, fielded panels, upper glazing plus side lights, semi-elliptical over-light. Window to each bay, 'Gibbs' style with aprons, outer pair rectangular 'cross' form, stone date plaques above 19-06. Windows bay 2 and 4 as outer but with lunate heads above, centre one over porch lunate. All windows have renewed glazing in original style, rectangular leaded panes, coloured glass borders, brown roundels, green lining. Roof with 5 hipped dormer style lights adn 4 louvred hipped vents, above. Central bold clock turret, dial to each face, copper sheathed, domed with large weather vane. All brick and stone work of the facade is executed to the highest standard. N and S end elevations: similar, curvilinear 'Dutch' gables, kneelers, pediments at apices. Single central windows, mullioned and transomed, 'Gibbs' surrounds, prominent key-stones, 3x3, round heads, above radial glazing bars, sun-ray glazing in white yellow and blue, lower glazing similar to E facade windows. To rear, single-storey unit with shaped coping, gabled block at W end. 3 windows, central one larger, segment-headed with upper centre-hung casements, lower plain sashes. Centre window N end converted to principal entry doorway, door of 2 leaves fully glazed. W rear elevation: single-storeyed unit full length with central flat-roofed 3-cant bay window. Originally 11 similar segment headed windows, upper sashes with glazing bars, 3x2 panes, lower sashes plain. 2 windows at S end altered, S now doorway and adjacent blocked. INTERIOR: 5 bays of hall delineated by hammer-beam roof with simple pendants, trusses on stone corbels, decorated with national emblems. Walls of glazed tiles, cream with brown and green dado, upper frieze lozenge pattern in green and red. Original front door has wooden framed and panelled inner porch, doors to porch and 3 doors and doorcases along rear wall renewed with copies, pedimented, fielded panels. The rear building, originally a large kitchen, now remodelled as lounge, bar and service rooms. HISTORICAL NOTE: the hall plus the building to the SSW, now Brentwood Adult Education Centre remain from a very large complex comprising twin schools for boys and girls conceived as a residential village for deprived children from E London. Poplars Hall was the boy's dining hall. The leading guardian was George Lansbury the social reformer. For the children at Hutton Poplars his policy was that they should have 'decent treatment and hang the rates'.

Listing NGR: TQ6203495373

Content

This is part of the Series: IOE01/0131 IOE Records taken by David Batterbury; within the Collection: IOE01 Images Of England

Rights

© Mr David Batterbury. Source: Historic England Archive

This photograph was taken for the Images of England project