Easington Colliery School, Seaside Lane, Easington, Durham : Historic Buildings Report
Author(s): Simon Taylor
Easington Colliery School was designed in 191 1 by J. Morson of Newcastle and Durham and was fully open by 1915. It was built by Durham County Council to provide elementary education for the children of miners' families who moved into the area to work at the newly opened Easington Colliery. The school buildings were erected on previously vacant land and are situated between Seaside Lane, School Lane and Vincent Street. They are close to several blocks of near-contemporary colliery workers' housing and are monumental in size and design, no-doubt to emphasise the importance of education in a community otherwise influenced by and in close proximity to the single large industrial complex upon which it was utterly dependant. The school was designed to accommodate 1700 children in four departments (senior boys, infant boys, senior girls and infant girls) within two equally-sized, two-storeyed teaching blocks with flanking playgrounds equipped with latrines and playsheds. One teaching block was for boys, the other for girls, and in each case infants were taught on the ground floor while seniors were taught on the first floor. The main teaching blocks were supplemented by much smaller singlestoreyed manual instruction and cookery blocks, for boys and girls respectively, and a caretaker's house was also built on the site. The school buildings are of red brick with concrete dressings in a simple but confident baroque style and the playgrounds are bounded by brick walls with wrought-iron railings and gates. The structures were little altered during their working life and retain many of their original fixtures and fittings while their internal layouts have remained largely unchanged. However, all the latrine blocks have been removed from the playgrounds, and the playsheds reduced in number, and the girls' cookery block has been demolished. Easington Colliery School was replaced by a new building on Whickham Street in 1998.
- Report Number:
- 87/2006
- Series:
- Research Department Reports
- Pages:
- 30
