Details
This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 14 August 2023 to update the name and address and reformat the text to current standards.
SO85SE
620-1/4/685
WORCESTER
BATTENHALL AVENUE
The Stables and attached walls and gate piers
(Formerly listed as St Mary's Convent Infant School and attached walls and gate piers, BATTLE ROAD previously listed as: BATTLE ROAD, St Mary's Convent Infant School)
GV
II
Former stables with hay loft over, carriage house with groom's quarters over and washing bay to front, sick bay and forge, school (at time of listing) with walls and gate piers. c1893. For Alfred Percy Allsopp, by architect John Henry Williams of Foregate Street, Worcester; builders Joseph Woods and Sons, The Butts, Worcester; additions and alterations of c1960s for the Sisters of St. Marie Madelaeine Poster.
Gault brick in Flemish bond with glazed tile dressings and decorative pseudo timber-framing to first floor and gables; hipped and gabled fish-scale, plain tile roofs; tall brick ridge stacks with bands and cornices resembling clustered stacks; cast-iron stanchions.
PLAN: closed-U on plan, describing a horseshoe; the buildings form an L-shape with curved walls to north-west end, then wall and gateway to east; further ranges to rear. Tudor Revival style. Four main ranges with varied roof heights; low, single-storey, single bay range (former forge); single-storey with attic, two bays (former sick bay); single storey joining range; one and a half storey, three bay range (former carriage house and groom's quarters), a three bay, open canopy to front (former washing bay); and one and a half storeys, four bays (former stables and hay loft). Plinth. From left: Forge has four-panel door; window to canted angle. Sick bay has off-centre left four-panel door with three-panel overlight between two- and three-light mullion and transom windows, all openings have splayed sills and ovolo-moulded surrounds, with flat, voussoired arches and continuous hoodmould; two roof dormers with multi-pane casement windows and decorative bargeboards. Entrance to joining range a four-panel door with three-light overlight and similar surround with continuous hoodmould. Former carriage house has off-centre right straight-headed archway with similar surround; otherwise to left are former plank carriage doors, now with inserted six-pane windows and with entrance a plank door and four-light overlight; at right a four-panel door with three-light overlight, voussoired surround and hoodmould. First floor has three gables, that to centre is taller and wider with decorative timbering and carved bargeboards; three- and five-light, multi-pane windows. To front at ground floor are three stanchions on plinths supporting roof hipped to left end. Former stable range: three part-glazed, four-panel doors with two-pane overlights; to left a three-light mullion and transom window, otherwise inserted eight-pane windows with flat arches and chamfered sills. First floor has three gables to front with decorative timbering and carved bargeboards, the centre gable is wider and taller and has double pitching doors with flat lintel on carved corbels. Otherwise gables have three-light, multi-pane windows. Rear range: single, one and a half, and two storeys. Similar pseudo timber framing to upper stages with carved bargeboards; mullion and transom windows to ground floor, multi-pane windows to first floor. The north-western range has a single storey and is embattled. The adjoining walls are approximately 1 metre high and embattled; piers are octagonal in plan with blind tracery and blank shields to upper panels, ogee caps. Battlements embellished with scrolled vine motif. Similar embattled covered carriage entrance at rear.
INTERIOR: not inspected.
An architecturally-distinguished example of former stables in Domestic Revival style with hayloft over, carriage house with groom's quarters over and washing bay to front, sick bay and forge, now school, with walls and gate-piers, dating from c1893. Forms a group with St. Mary's Convent School, Battenhall Avenue and St. Mary's Convent School Gatehouse, Battle Road (qqv).
(Leach, Annette: The House that William Built - the history of Battenhall Mount: Birmingham University: 1993-).
