Former Schoolmaster's House

Reasons for Designation

85 Gordon Road is designated at Grade II, for the following principal reasons: * Built in 1895 as the schoolmaster's house, it has strong group value with the adjacent listed Victoria Schools * The design of the house and schools was by Walter Talbot Brown, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects with a number of listed buildings to his name * The external features of the house are subtly designed to echo those of the schools across the playground * The high quality of detailing and materials reflects the wealth and civic pride generated by the Northamptonshire boot and shoe industry * The house is unaltered externally and remains surrounded by its original context of schools, terraced housing and boot and shoe factory buildings.

Details

654/0/10015 GORDON ROAD 25-JUL-08 85 Former Schoolmaster's House

GV II Schoolmaster's house, 1895 by W. Talbot Brown in a Queen Anne style.

MATERIALS: Red brick with stone dressings and red tile roof.

PLAN: Rectangular.

EXTERIOR: A two-storey house with a gabled roof and tall chimney stacks. It retains the original horned sash windows which have 6 panes in the upper section. The Gordon Road elevation has a round-arched porch with a moulded stone part-surround, a bracketed wooden canopy and a part-glazed recessed front door. To the right are two windows with shaped brick hood moulds. On the first floor there are 3 windows with segmental brick hood moulds and stone sills. A stone string-course runs beneath the windows and there is a moulded brick eaves course. The SE elevation facing the playground has a shallow cross-gable with two sash windows on the ground floor and 3 windows on the first floor with segmental brick hood moulds and stone sills. The stone string-course continues along the length of this elevation and the gable has a moulded brick eaves course. The tall chimney stack to the left of the gable has curved offsets and stone insets. Beneath the eaves to the left there is a small round window with a moulded stone surround.

INTERIOR: Not inspected.

HISTORY: Victoria Schools were designed by Walter Talbot Brown for the Wellingborough School Board and opened in 1895. At the same time he designed a schoolmaster's house at the top of the infants' playground, adjoining a terrace on the east side of Gordon Road. On the 1888 Ordnance Survey map, the area to the north of Mill Road is occupied by vacant fields. By the second edition map of 1900, Victoria Schools and the schoolmaster's house have appeared on the north side of the road, surrounded by small boot and shoe factories and terraced housing for the workers whose children attended the schools. The unprecedented rate of expansion of Northamptonshire towns such as Wellingborough in the late C19 and early C20 was due to the wealth generated by boot and shoe production. This wealth and the attendant civic pride are reflected in the high quality of the buildings associated with Victoria Schools and the Board's choice of architect.

Walter Talbot Brown had been articled to E. F. Law of Northampton in 1869-74, and commenced independent practice in Wellingborough in 1876 or 1877. From 1880 he was in partnership with James William Fisher (1857-1936). He was made an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1880 and a Fellow in 1894. He collaborated with John Alfred Gotch on the seminal work Architecture of the Renaissance in England, published in six parts in 1891-4 and as a two-volume book in 1894. When Talbot Brown died in 1931, he was described by The Builder as 'a notable figure in the development of English architecture, particularly in the country district of Northampton'. His work was considered of 'a high and personal nature', although his 'retiring disposition' prevented it from being as well known as it should be. He designed many new houses, schools and churches in Northamptonshire, restored several medieval churches and was responsible for over thirty First World War memorials.

SOURCES: Ordnance Survey maps 1888, 1900, 1925. Nikolaus Pevsner and Bridget Cherry, Buildings of England: Northamptonshire (Penguin, 1973), 454. J. Alfred Gotch, assisted by W. Talbot Brown, Architecture of the Renaissance in England, 2 vols. (London: Batsford, 1894). 'Obituary of W. Talbot Brown FRIBA', The Builder, Vol. 141 (28 August 1931), 336. RIBA, Directory of British Architects 1834-1914 (Continuum, 2001), Vol. 1, 277.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION DECISION: 85 Gordon Road is designated at Grade II, for the following principal reasons: * Built in 1895 as the schoolmaster's house, it has strong group value with the adjacent listed Victoria Schools * The design of the house and schools was by Walter Talbot Brown, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects with a number of listed buildings to his name * The external features of the house are subtly designed to echo those of the schools across the playground * The high quality of detailing and materials reflects the wealth and civic pride generated by the Northamptonshire boot and shoe industry * The house is unaltered externally and remains surrounded by its original context of schools, terraced housing and boot and shoe factory buildings.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

504921

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Alfred Gotch, J, Talbot Brown, W, Architecture of the Renaissance in England (2 Volumes), (1894)
British Architectural Library, RIBA, Directory of British Architects 1834-1914, (2001), 277
Pevsner, N, Cherry, B, The Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, (1973), 454
The Builder in 28 August, (1931), 336

End of official list entry

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