Queen Mary School

Details

621-1/0/10006
21-DEC-01

CLIFTON DRIVE
Queen Mary School

II

Secondary school. 1930 with mid C20 alterations and late C20 additions. By Thomas Taliesin Rees and Richard Holt, architects. Red brick,and ashlar sandstone with sandstone dressings and Westmorland slate roof coverings , laid to diminishing courses.
PLAN: Double quadrangular plan set behind a long frontage elevation, and enclosed by lower parallel rear range.
EXTERIOR: ENTRANCE ( NORTH ) FRONT: Long 2 storey range, with central 3-bay entrance set within balustraded central portico made up of giant columns with Corinthian capitals . Moulded doorcase to main entrance below broken segmental pediment. Hipped roof rises behind balustrade, with cupola and weathervane. Flanking 12 bay ranges, with glazing bar sashes to tall first floor windows and smaller square ground floor openings. Paired pilasters to corners, and moulded cornice gutter. These are linked to advanced single storeyed pavilion wings, with pilastered corners, tall side wall windows and hipped roofs. These were formerly library (left) and kitchen, with stack, (right) .
REAR ELEVATION: long, single storeyed range with hipped roofs and multi-pane windows in plain surrounds. Set-back bays at either end were extended in near matching style. The original range has hopper heads dated 1930. Front and rear ranges are linked by ranges to the outer sides of the 2 quadrangles, formerly single-storeyed, now with added storey to east side, and to the centre by the galleried assembly hall .
INTERIOR: Little-disturbed original plan survives, with original door and window joinery throughout most of the complex. Full-length corridors to both front and rear ranges connect central entrance hall with all other ranges .Twin flanking stair with cast-iron balusters give access to upper floor corridor to frontage range and to assembly hall gallery. Hall with raised stage to south end tiered gallery , segmental vaulted roof with moulded plaster panels. Ground floor cloakrooms formerly for junior and senior pupils retain original cast iron columns and numbered pegs together with accompanying benches.
HISTORY: The Queen Mary School for Girls was completed in 1930, 2 years after the extension of suffrage to women in 1928. The equally extensive provision for the boys of Lytham had been completed in 1906. Both schools were funded by the Lytham Schools Foundation, which had its origins in 1702, when the then Clerk of Lytham, a Mr Threllfall,gave £5 for ' poor childrens' schooling'.

An extensive and little- altered girls secondary school of 1930 (completed 2 years after the final extension of suffrage to women) in a convincing and carefully- detailed neo-Georgian style, demonstrating the commitment to the most up-to-date educational provision of the ambitious and expanding local authority at Lytham St Annes. The building. is described as an 'undiluted' example of the genre in 'The English School' by Seabourne and Lowe ( p.142, vol 2), and is one of the best of its kind.

The school was designed and finished to a high specification, both in terms of the materials used for the external fabric and the internal finishes.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

488316

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Seaborne, M, Lowe, R, The English School: Its Architecture and Organisation 1870-1970, (1977), 142

End of official list entry

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