Details
BRIGHTON
TQ3106 RUGBY ROAD
577-1/13/784 (North side)
17/05/95 Downs Junior School and attached
walls and gate piers
GV II
Board school. Dated 1890 in a plaque on the Rugby Road front;
built as the Ditchling Road Board School to the designs of
Thomas Simpson for the School Board of Brighton; some
additions of c1900. Brown brick with dressings of red brick,
gauged red brick, cement, stone and terracotta, roof of slate.
EXTERIOR: one and 2 storeys over basement. The school is laid
out along the north side of Rugby Road, with classrooms
generally facing onto Rugby Road, and halls onto the
playground to the north; and it is divided into a 2-storey
block to the west, and a single-storey block to the east; the
first was used for Junior Girls and Boys, the second for
Infants. Flat-arched entrance at east end of west block,
flanked by pilasters of red brick and stone with a segmental
arch above. All windows cambered-arched with heads of gauged
red brick. The west range is in 4 gabled parts, each part
having 2 broad inner windows and 2 narrow outer windows to
ground floor, all with 6/6 sashes of original design and
toplights; storey band; 2 broad inner windows with decorative
aprons of gauged red brick, and 2 narrow, shorter outer
windows to first floor with 6/6 sashes of original design, and
toplights only to the inner windows; gables decorated with a
pediment in cement and vertical ribs of angled bricks framing
louvres; the westernmost part differs from the rest in that it
projects slightly, has only 3 windows of equal width to ground
floor, and a basement with segmental-arched windows; corniced
stacks between gables; decorative ridge tiles to roof; lantern
to hall range renewed. The east range has 4 classrooms each
under its own gable, with 3 windows each, all with 6/6 sashes,
the central one higher with toplight, and flanked at this
stage by pilasters which run up across a moulded band to form
a panel in the gable round the louvres; apex of gable all of
red brick; decorative ridge tiles.
On the north side, facing the playground: all windows
cambered-arched with heads of gauged red brick; central hall
range of 5 windows, the second and 4th on the first floor
carried up above the eaves and hipped; to the left a gabled
wing with mezzanine, to the right a lower wing with varied
fenestration including an oriel window to first floor and
parapet upswept at the corners. The east wing is of 7-window
range with the 3 easternmost windows under a half-hip, and the
second and third from the west raised under a hip.
INTERIOR: the interior retains its original plan in
essentials, with classrooms grouped around the halls on 2
storeys in the western block, and a smaller hall on the north
side of the Infants block with classrooms grouped around it;
boarded dados in the halls, tiled dados frequently surviving
in classrooms and passages; partitions between the central,
south-facing classrooms and the hall survive on both floors,
but are now fixed.
Dwarf wall to Rugby Road of brick with stone coping and brick
piers; ornate segmental arch to entrance with square brick
piers with offset in stone and terracotta panel of Flemish
Renaissance ornament crowned by a stone entablature with
segmental lintel, also in stone, and central pediment;
inscription to fascia erased; cast-iron railings and original
gate of cast- and wrought-iron. About 8 metres from Ditchling
Road the character of the wall changes to about 2 metres high,
with panels of flint framed by red brick between panelled
piers. This wall runs for approx 50 metres to the Infants
entrance, which is a simpler version of that in Rugby Road
with original cast- and wrought-iron gate.
The wall continues as a dwarf brick wall with panelled brick
piers and cast-iron railings, in front of the Schoolkeeper's
house, and then returns to its full height in Grantham Road
and Edburton Avenue, enclosing the school playground. In
Grantham Road is the 'Junior Mixed' entrance, to the same
design as the Infants entrance in Ditchling Road, with
original gate.
(Downs Junior School. A Centenary Review: Brighton).
Listing NGR: TQ3145006070
