Former Foxhole School and gymnasium

Summary

The former Foxhole School was built between 1931 and 1932 to the designs of Oswald P Milne. A separate gymnasium, designed in the International Style by WE Lescaze, was constructed to the south of the school between 1933 and 1934. Both buildings were constructed by Staverton Builders, the Dartington estate contractors. The school accommodation was extended between 1957 and 1967 by Barron & Smith, including a music room, assembly hall, craft block, and a boarding house; these extensions are excluded from the List entry. The school closed in 1987, and the buildings were vacated in around 2010.

Reasons for Designation

The former Foxhole School built between 1931 and 1932 to the designs of Oswald P Milne, and the gymnasium, designed by WE Lescaze and built between 1933 and 1934, at Dartington, Devon are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* as the principal purpose-built educational building of Dartington Hall School, recognised for its design from the time of its construction;
* as a notable example of Oswald Milne’s approach school design, combining traditional architectural treatment with the requirements of a novel brief for its accommodation;
* the gymnasium is an important element of WE Lescaze’s overall contribution to the architecture of Dartington Hall Estate;
* the school and gymnasium retain most of their plan, form and detailing, with the school’s staircases and fireplaces and the survival of bedroom fixtures being of particular note.

Historic interest:
* for the school's innovative and influential educational methods and ethos, devised by the Elmhirsts and made successful under its first headmaster, William B Curry;
* as an early and significant element of ‘The Dartington Experiment’, and the historic development of the estate between the wars;

Group value:
* strong group value with the contemporaneous buildings on the Dartington Hall Estate associated with the development of the school, and those designed by Oswald Milne and WE Lescaze.

History

At the centre of the Dartington Hall Estate are the surviving parts of the great C14 medieval house (listed Grade I, wider area scheduled), which was almost derelict by the time it was purchased by Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst in 1925 from the Champernowne family, who had owned the estate since 1559. The Elmhirsts set about using their substantial wealth to renovate Dartington Hall, beginning The Dartington Experiment, an ambitious programme of rural regeneration based on modern methods of agriculture and forestry, progressive education, arts and literature. Under their patronage, Dartington became a magnet for émigré artists, craftspeople, thinkers, musicians, dancers and actors during the interwar period, and it developed into a vibrant cultural community and a centre of innovation and influence. The couple made Dartington their home for the rest of their lives.

One of the early stages of The Dartington Experiment was the establishment of a progressive co-educational private boarding school. The Elmhirst’s new school was partly based on the experimental Lincoln School in New York attended by Dorothy’s children and inspired by the philosophy of Tagore’s ‘Siksah-Satra’ and the writings of Rousseau and John Dewey. A comparable progressive institution in England was Bedales School in Hampshire, established in 1898, which had a strong emphasis on the practice and philosophy of the arts and crafts. Both Bedales and Dartington were outside of the main tradition of English education at the time: teaching was not standardised and gave pupils flexibility and freedom, although a formal scholarly education was provided for pupils who wanted it; those who it would not benefit were not required to study for exams or careers; and those that showed an interest in the work of the various estate departments were encouraged to spend time working with them.

The school initially used rooms in the east wing of the hall complex, with a playhouse in the garden designed by Rex Gardner utilised as a nursery school. The first intake in 1926 was of about a dozen pupils, mostly boys aged 7 to 16. Teaching staff were initially drawn from the Elmhirsts’ friends: Wyatt Rawson, Marjorie Wise, Vic Elmhirst (Leonard’s brother), and John Wales were the first appointments. Numbers did not exceed 30 until after July 1931 when William B Curry, who was born in Jarrow, taught at Bedales School, and was recruited from the progressive Oak Lane Day School in Philadelphia, became the first proper headmaster; the Elmhirsts preferred the title ‘Director of Education’ as he oversaw the primary, junior and senior schools.

New buildings were gradually provided, starting with Aller Park for the nursery and primary school (completed September 1931); followed by a junior (ages 8-12) and senior (ages 12-18) school at Foxhole, completed in 1932 from the designs of Oswald Milne. Each school was organised as a trust to ensure the educational ethos was kept unique. It was considered to be the first of its type in England established on the scale of traditional schools.

Oswald Milne FRSA FRIBA (1881-1968) was appointed architect for the new school at Foxhole on the recommendation of Frederick AS Gwatkin, a solicitor who established Dartington Hall Ltd in 1929. The school was designed for juniors, with a separate senior school envisaged at a later date; this did not happen due to the effects of Great Depression. Milne and Elmhirst corresponded over plans for the new building from August 1930, construction started in summer 1931 and the school opened in September 1932.

The new school at Foxhole was planned for 64 boarders in four houses of 16 over two storeys, placed mirroring each other in two wings either side of a quadrangle. Each house had a bedroom for each pupil, a pupils’ common room (initially beautifully furnished by Dorothy Elmhirst), a small kitchen where the pupils occasionally prepared their own meals (again, Dorothy initially chose the crockery, a different colour for each house), a bath and WC, a tutor’s room, and a housemother’s room. The housemother was a ‘substitute mother’ for the pupils, taking the roles of the traditional housemaster/mistress, prefects and matron. At the north end of the school was the main entrance beneath a clocktower, a dining hall with a gallery and well-equipped kitchens, school offices and the headmaster’s room. An assembly hall with a stage, and a library and art rooms were located to the south, the latter spaces in end pavilions. Classrooms were positioned at the corners of the quadrangle, with open-air classrooms flanking the assembly hall; their flat roofs were used for open-air sleeping. A covered way faced north into the courtyard, with further loggias to the courtyard sides of the classrooms, and a raised terrace was built to the south of the school for further outdoor teaching. Classrooms were provided with only what was needed, bedrooms with wash basins and compact storage, the assembly hall walls were lined with oak plywood, the floors throughout were of jarrah woodblocks (laid by the Acme Flooring Company), and the whole building was heated with boxed-in central heating below the windows.

A separate gymnasium was added to the north of the school in 1933-34, to designs of William E Lescaze of Howe & Lescaze. Under Elmhirst’s direction, Lescaze also contributed elsewhere to the development of the school, designing High Cross House for Curry in 1932, and three boarding houses on Park Road between 1933 and 1935. The gymnasium comprised a large and a small gymnasium; no large, dedicated space for physical exercise had been included as part the school’s original design. Its planning was determined by the ease of communication across a terrace from Milne’s school buildings, and services were also run from there. A locker room, changing area, toilets and showers were located across the north end of the ground floor, with storage and a cleaning store on the opposite side of a corridor. At the east end of the corridor was a staff room and, past this, the small gymnasium or exercise room. At the west end of the corridor, stairs led up to an open viewing gallery and to the flat roof which was paved for use as a playground. Principal access was at the north-west corner, with further doors at the south-west corner and on the south side of the exercise room. The main gymnasium had high-level windows, with radiators below to minimise obstruction around the walls and prevent down draughts from the windows. The floor was laid with non-slip Empire hardwood and the walls lined with white facing bricks. It was intended that the space would be used for general recreation during wet weather. A separate changing block attached by a canopy to the south-west corner of the gymnasium is excluded from the List entry.

Pupil admissions at Foxhole rose steadily to 150 in 1934. An accommodation storey was added to the flat-roofed pavilion on the south-west side of the quadrangle in 1938; the outbreak of war prevented the same happening to the south-east pavilion, as did plans for a new assembly hall and library. By the time war in Europe broke out, Dartington had become internationally famous for its school, with pupil numbers just under 200. Evacuees from London used Aller Park during the war, whilst Foxhole was comfortably filled with those boarders who had not themselves been evacuated. With changes in pupil numbers after the war, Curry established a Middle School (ages 11-13) at Aller Park and Foxhole became the senior school with the two houses in each wing of the building becoming one. Due to rising costs and the availability of staff, the senior pupils engaged in ‘Useful Work’ for one hour each day, undertaking domestic chores, maintenance tasks or even making furniture; this was then the only compulsory activity in the school.

Curry left Dartington in 1957 and was succeeded by Hubert and Lois Child as joint headmasters. They enabled various extensions to the school designed by Barron & Smith (and variations of the practice) including: a new boarding house known as ‘The White House’ linking the gymnasium to the south-west corner of the school; a craft block comprising single-storey modular hexagonal units attached to the east side of the gymnasium (1962; extended 1967) with a hexagonally-designed courtyard replacing the historic terrace (1962); a polygonal music room adjoining the north-west pavilion (1967); and a polygonal new assembly hall adjoining the north-east pavilion (1959-60), which also resulted in alterations to the historic kitchens and a new dining hall. All of these extensions are excluded from the List entry.

The school closed in 1987 after which the buildings were used as accommodation for retreats and adult education courses until around 2010.

Famous alumni of Dartington Hall School include Lucien Freud, the animator Oliver Postgate, and the actor Charlotte Coleman. Eminent figures of national and international artistic prominence sent their children to the school, such as Aldous Huxley and Maria Nys’ son Matthew Huxley; Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth’s son Simon Nicholson; and John and Kate Russell, the children of Bertrand Russell and Dora Black.

Details

The former Foxhole School was built between 1931 and 1932 to the designs of Oswald P Milne. A separate gymnasium, designed in the International Style by WE Lescaze, was constructed to the south of the school between 1933 and 1934. Both buildings were constructed by Staverton Builders, the Dartington estate contractors. The school accommodation was extended between 1957 and 1967 by Barron & Smith, including a music room, assembly hall, craft block, and a boarding house; these extensions are excluded from the List entry. The school closed in 1987, and the buildings were vacated in around 2010.

FORMER FOXHOLE SCHOOL

MATERIALS: brick construction on a granite plinth, roughly rendered and painted; Delabole slate roofs. Grey limestone ashlar dressings to external architraves.

PLAN: a quadrangle, with the entrance below a clocktower to the north, historically planned with bedrooms and classrooms in the east and west wings and assembly hall to the south. Polygonal 1960s extensions to the south-east, north-east and north-west, and a 1960s rectangular accommodation block linking to the gymnasium (these extensions are not included or in the List entry, nor are they further described).

EXTERIOR: designed in a Neo-Georgian style with elements of Art Deco, the former school is built over two storeys with attic bedrooms in the north range. Each of the four elevations is roughly symmetrical, with moulded cornices below a low parapet.

The principal elevation faces north and is symmetrical around a central clocktower. The clocktower is rectangular in form with diminishing stages above an embedded circular clock, with horizontal slit windows to the second stage. The main entrance door has an Art Deco-style limestone ashlar architrave with a roll-moulding to the inner frame. The tower is flanked by three window bays each with a blind semicircular arch above; the roof here is hipped with end stacks. The elevation is then flanked again by projecting pavilions with hipped roofs with dormers and rooflights; each pavilion has seven window bays with three bays on the inner returns.

The south elevation also has corner pavilions, here with four window bays facing south and two to the inner returns. The south-east pavilion is of two storeys with a flat roof, and the south-west pavilion has been extended by one storey and has uPVC windows at this level, and it has a hipped roof. The south elevation is largely obscured by later accretions.

The elevations to the east and west ranges follow the same pattern as the courtyard elevations, as described below, except for the central three bays which step forward and the end classrooms which have eight over twelve sash windows to the upper floors. The ranges have hipped roofs with an axial and end stacks.

The courtyard elevations are also symmetrical. That to the north (facing south) has a central doorway flanked by two sash windows and in turn by double-height flat-roofed canted bays with sash windows on each face. On the first floor, sash windows have semicircular blind arches to the heads, except to the bays, and there is a range of seven dormer windows to the roof behind a low parapet. That to the south has a nine-bay flat-roofed loggia with rectangular piers and a stepped Art Deco-style cornice; the loggia turns to the north at both ends with a further two bays. Within the loggia, attached cylindrical columns flank the entrance doors to the original assembly hall (later library), and the floors are paved with quarry tiles. Above the loggia are five porthole windows and the wall rises to a parapet behind which is a large C20 dormer to the hipped roof. The first-floor flanking walls are lower and meet pavilions to the south-east and south-west. The east and west courtyard ranges have pitched roofs with axial stacks, with each inward elevation comprising ten window bays, with two further window bays to each end, which step forward slightly. At the end of each range is a flat-roofed bay with a sash window with side lights to each storey, and adjacent again are flat-roofed loggias with their upper storey set back; later C20 railings and a spiral staircase have been added at each north end.

External doors have limestone ashlar Art Deco-style architraves as previously described. Windows are timber six over six sashes on the first floor and eight over eight on the ground floor throughout, unless stated. Cast-iron rainwater goods including hoppers survive.

INTERIOR: the plan of the former school is largely repetitive, and only the principal spaces are described in detail. Historic uses are given to aid identification.

The main entrance to the building is on the north side of the clocktower and leads into an entrance hall with a polished limestone floor. To the east is the original dining hall which has a full-height bay window to the south. In the later-C20 the space was partitioned from the hallway, the northern gallery infilled, and a corridor and partitions added; a fireplace with a moulded limestone surround survives. The creation of a larger dining hall to the east in the 1960s has obscured the historic plan. To the west of the entrance hall off a wide corridor are the porter’s office and waiting room; there is a step-framed timber hatch and windows between the two, with a radiator below, and glazed double-doors into the latter. To the west again is the headmaster’s room, accessed through an arched opening from the secretary’s office. The headmaster’s room is partially panelled and has a double-height bay window to the south, and an Art Deco-style polished limestone fire-surround with a tiled hearth to the west. The corridor leads round to the west range, where there is a lobby and a timber dogleg staircase with a moulded timber handrail, newel and flush baluster and spandrel panelling (the main staircases within the east and west ranges are identical to this but with a stepped-profile ceiling to the lobby). At the north end of the west range is the children’s common room, a large space of five window bays with rooflights, and a stage to the south and music rooms in the form of cubicles on the north side. On the first floor of the north range is the former staff common room which has a fireplace with a painted marble surround to the west and a bay window to the south. A timber staircase with flush-panelled balusters, a ramped handrail and newels leads to the attics of the north range; these contain bedrooms fitted out as below. A cast-iron staircase leads up to the clocktower bell chamber; the bell, cast at Whitechapel Foundry under Mears & Stainbank in 1932, hangs off a steel joist. A metal ladder leads upwards to the roof of the clocktower.

On each floor of the east and west wings are bedrooms off a spine corridor with the housemother’s rooms in the centre; these have flat-profile polished limestone fire surrounds. Each bedroom has inbuilt timber storage adjacent to the window, with cupboards, drawers, shelves and a wash basin with mirror above. Bathrooms at each end of the range have cream tiling with a green top band to three-quarter height, and quarry-tile floors. Classrooms at the north and south ends of each range are large and airy, but do not retain any fixtures and are decorated as described below.

Central within the south range is the original assembly hall, which was converted into a library in the later C20. The double-height space has a gallery on three sides, with high-level windows above and open-sided study spaces below. Within a small room at the west end is a small hand-cranked lift of unknown purpose; a stone staircase leads down to a basement beneath the south-west pavilion. To the north of this pavilion is a staircase which leads to the upper floor (fitted out as a kitchen), and onwards to the south through a 1960s link to ‘The White House’ (not include in the List entry).

Flooring is woodblock throughout, carpeted over in the bedrooms and their corridors. Walls are plastered and painted unless stated and those to principal spaces, staircases and corridors have a flush-panelled timber dado; joinery in the staircases and corridors has largely been painted over. Internal doors to principal rooms are glazed above fielded panels within stepped architraves; doors to bedrooms are flush panelled within the same architraves. The heating system is apparent throughout the building, with cast-iron radiators placed beneath windows and along corridors in recesses.

FORMER GYMNASIUM

MATERIALS: constructed on a steel frame of girders and stanchions, the outer walls are of rendered concrete block and internal walls are faced in brick. Steel-framed ‘Crittal’ windows.

PLAN: rectangular, with ancillary rooms and gallery to the north; the building’s standalone location has been subsumed within later extensions.

EXTERIOR: designed in the International Modern style, the building is six bays north to south under a flat roof with a concrete parapet. Rising above the roof at the north-west corner is a rectangular stair tower which has four-pane steel-framed windows. The east and west elevations have a high-level steel-framed rectangular window with 12 large panes in each bay, and to the right of the west elevation are double doors.

To the south-west of the gymnasium is a later-C20 changing-room block, connected to the corner of the gym by a flat canopy (not included in the List entry).

INTERIOR: a single six-bay rectangular space with painted brick walls and a hardwood boarded floor. The roof is supported on five riveted-steel joists on piers between the high-level windows. Below each window is a cast-iron radiator (as to the original design). The gallery at the north end is jettied into the gymnasium; viewing windows were added in the later C20. Below the gallery are timber double-doors with a further single door to their left.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

101002

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Bonham-Carter, V, Dartington Hall - The Formative Years: 1925-57, (1970)
Hussey, C, A Modern School: Dartington Hall, Totnes, Devon’ in Country Life, (May 27 1933), 548-553
Dartington Hall, Totnes, Devon: 2: The Gymnasium Block in Architects’ Journal, (October 3 1935), 481-482
The New Rural England: the Buildings of Dartington Hall Ltd, Totnes, S Devon – II’ in The Architect and Building News, (July 7 1933), 10-13

Other
Dartington Hall Senior School, Foxhole, 1929-1981: maps and plans (Devon Heritage Centre, DHTA/T/EST/S/25/A/27)

End of official list entry

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