Dulwich College, Main Building

Details

SOUTHWARK

TQ3373 COLLEGE ROAD 636-1/15/231 (West side) 27/09/72 Dulwich College, main building

GV II*

School. 1866-70. By the younger Charles Barry. Red brick and cream terracotta, with tiled roofs. STYLE AND PLAN: 3 blocks lined by arcades in ornate North Italian Renaissance style. The larger central block is nearly square, and contains the hall and other principal rooms. The side blocks are in a more clearly Italian Renaissance style. Each is 3 storeys, 5 bays on a stubby H-plan, with hipped roofs above cornice and frieze. At the junction with the arcades are towers: that on south block with an open, arcaded top storey and pyramidal roof; that on the north with a spirelet over a clock. Otherwise blocks are similar. They contain classrooms and offices. EXTERIOR: central block: 3 storeys richly embellished with terracotta. The entrance facade is divided into 3 parts by heavy pilasters which contain niches with busts and other decorative panels; pilasters also clasp the corners. They rise to a deep cornice above which is an openwork parapet which continues over the tall central gable. Elaborate pedimented doorway beneath large hall window with free Perpendicular geometrical-type tracery but with a round head. As the hall runs across the block, there is a similar gable at the rear (the west side) but here the facade is obscured by a lower forebuilding recently extended in a compatible style. Ground-floor segmental-headed sash windows with keystones. Piano nobile with round-headed sash windows surmounted, all round the building, by busts of worthies from the World of Learning. Small square sash windows to 2nd floor. Cream plinth, sill bands and other decorative panels. Various pinnacles, small, and larger central lantern with spirelet to roofline. Arcades are round-headed, of 9 bays, and issue slightly offset from the centre of each side. They have now been glazed but were originally open. Side blocks: 3 storeys, 5 bays; banded rustication to ground-floor with central doorpiece between keystoned segmental-headed sash windows. Taller paired round-headed sashes to piano nobile beneath large round arches and with a small bust above each pair. Small paired segmental-headed sashes to 2nd floor within segmental-headed surrounds. Decorative cream plinth, sill bands and panels.

INTERIOR: central block contains Lower Hall, forming an undercroft to the Hall, which is pillared in an orthodox Classical style with pilasters to the walls and a rich coffered ceiling. Beyond this is the recent Wodehouse Library. To either side are dogleg stairs of stone with ornamental cast-iron balustrades under deep, ribbed coved ceilings. The Master's Library, off the top landing of the north stair, has 2 storeys of shelves and a ceiling of Tudor character restored after war damage. The fireplace by Barry is surmounted by a tall C17 wooden chimneypiece with coupled Doric columns and crowning pediments framing 2 panels painted with allegorical female figures of "Pietas" and "Liberalitas", said to have been acquired by Alleyn and to have come from Queen Elizabeth's state barge. The Hall has a hammer-beam roof with 2 tiers of arched braces and 5 curved barrel vaults, producing a scalloped section. The lower braces descend to fully-modelled wall shafts. The roof is intricately moulded and painted. The Board Room also said to be of interest. These buildings represent one of the most important rebuilding programmes of the period, with modern laboratories and a hall finally liberated from teaching functions. Replacing the Old College buildings further north on College Road (qv), they were planned for 600 boys and the commission made financially possible by a provision of 100,000 as compensation by the railway lines which ran through the college estate. Forms a group with Dulwich Old College (qv).





Listing NGR: TQ3319673006

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

470815

Legacy System:

LBS

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