Listing
Search the List

What is Listing?

Listing Guidance

Apply for Listing

Missing Pieces Project

Blue Plaque Scheme
Listing

Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Find out about listing

Terracotta tiles on the roof of Saintoft Lodge, Newton-on-Rawcliffe, Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Grade II listed © Historic England Archive DP371715
Advice
Climate Change

Heritage at Risk

Your Home

Technical Guidance

Planning

Caring for Heritage

Constructive Conservation
Advice

See our extensive range of expert advice to help you care for and protect historic places.

Get our advice

A contractor cutting bricks for the wall of the partially-restored wild and natural walled garden at Warley Place, Brentwood. Explore our technical advice section © Historic England Archive DP313199
Research
Our Research Strategy and Agenda

Research Governance

Latest Research

Research Methods

Current Research

Research Results

Support & Collaboration

Inclusive Heritage

Heritage Counts
Research

Discover and use our high-quality applied research to support the protection and management of the historic environment.

Discover our research

Archaeologist Dr David Neal discussing his illustration of the mosaic being excavated at Rutland Roman Villa with members of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services team View image DP264265 © Historic England
Images & Books
Find Photos

Search All Publications

Buy Books

The Historic England Archive
Images & Books

Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment.

Browse our collections

Children play with a doll and a pram on the cobbled Church Path in Queen Camel, Somerset, in April 1953. At the far end of the path is the tower of the Church of St Barnabas, which dates to the 14th century. Photographer: John Gay Image reference: AA091596 © Historic England Archive
Services & Skills
Education

Grants

Our Planning Services

Training & Skills

Archive Services

Heritage Action Zones

Levelling Up Places Service
Services & Skills

Find out about services offered by Historic England for funding, planning, education and research, as well as training and skill development.

Learn about our services

Heritage Apprentices in a training session on the Researching The Historic Environment module and training in Architectural Photography. Find out more about Heritage Apprenticeships © Historic England Archive DP347660
What's New
News

In Your Area

Historic England Blog

Latest Research

Heritage Online Debate

Statements

Stay up to Date
What's New

Read about our current news, projects and campaigns nationally and in your area.

Catch up with what's new

Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Source Historic England Archive. BB98/02592
About Us
What We Do

Who We Are

How We Are Funded

Contact Us

Careers

Volunteer with Historic England
About Us

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.

Find out more

Mountbatten House (formerly Gateway House), Basing View, Basingstoke, the former headquarters for the paper merchants Wiggins Teape by Arup Associates. Listed at Grade II. © Historic England
Sign in
Manage my account

Sign out

THE BRITISH SCHOOL

THE BRITISH SCHOOL, 153-155, SOUTHAMPTON STREET

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1380226
Date first listed:: 11-Apr-2000
List Entry Name:: THE BRITISH SCHOOL
Statutory Address:: THE BRITISH SCHOOL, 153-155, SOUTHAMPTON STREET

User submitted image — Uploaded by Evelyn Williams This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1380226
Date first listed:: 11-Apr-2000
List Entry Name:: THE BRITISH SCHOOL
Statutory Address 1:: THE BRITISH SCHOOL, 153-155, SOUTHAMPTON STREET

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: THE BRITISH SCHOOL, 153-155, SOUTHAMPTON STREET

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Reading (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: SU 71856 72625

Details

SU7172NE SOUTHAMPTON STREET 934/4/10027 Reading 12-APR-00 153-155 The British School

II

School, later industrial premises, part now Youth Club and part unoccupied and in a state of disrepair (September 1999). 1810 by R Billing, senior; rear addition 1817-18; altered and extended later C19. Of red brick with Welsh slate roofs. Four separate elements, of two or three storeys, and all of different heights. 1. The original 2-storey 1810 section is the lowest, built of red brick in Flemish bond, and having (on its north side): an inserted door; a small window on right with header-brick arch and clerestory. 2. The 1817-18 section added to rear (east) of original part: 3 storeys, the upper storey an addition.; 4 bays. On ground floor, blocked and inserted openings, including a wide segmented-arched door on right. Upper floors have wide segmented-arched windows with stepped chamfered sills and small-pane glazing. Graffiti in the earlier brickwork includes the dates '1874', '1877' and '1878'. 3. Mid-late C19 addition at road (west) end and facing road is of finely-pointed red brick in Flemish bond with yellow-brick pilasters defining bays and gable. Round-arched openings with stone and polychromatic-brick dressings: corbelled sills, pilasters with capitals; voussoirs; keystones; and arches. Central bay has paired windows to each floor one of those on ground floor made into a door, and decorative lozenges. Outer bays have decorative panel instead of window to upper floor. Left return has windows of 2 lights and one light to ground floor and one of 3 lights with chamfered brick sill above. 4. Mid-late C19 addition at east (rear) end set at right angles, is of 2 storeys with loft. North side has 3 bricked-up lunettes to ground floor, one now a window; inserted fire-escape door on 1st floor; and small pane loft window. Rear elevation has paired, wide, segmental arched openings with doors and small pane metal windows. Four large segmental arched windows with similar glazing and stone sills above. Stepped eaves. Raised verges. Interior: 1810 section1810 section: board-lined walls and some boarded partitions; braced wooden queen-post roof trusses; later stair up to the first floor of the added front block. 1817-18 section: metal column supporting a large-scantling cross-beam on the ground floor; roof trusses as in 1810 section (probably re-used when roof raised). Piping from former gas lighting throughout. The school was established by committee in 1809, at first in temporary accommodation, and subsequently in the purpose-built school on Southampton Street. Initially there were male pupils only, the 1817-18 addition being built to provide accommodation for girls. The school was run in accordance with the recommendations of Joseph Lancaster, a leader in educational reform in the late C18 and early C19, and it is believed to be the oldest surviving such school in Britain.

Listing NGR: SU7185672625

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: 479953
Legacy System:: LBS

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.