Details
TA 2909 NW CLEETHORPES LOVETT STREET
(west side)
4/12 Barcroft Junior
School (section
fronting onto
Lovett Street)
GV II
Boys' School and former girls' and infants' playsheds, now part of
Junior School. 1896 by Croft and Bentley of Grimsby, architects, and
Henry Marrows, builder, for Cleethorpes School Board. Red brick in
English bond with sandstone ashlar and yellow brick dressings. Welsh
slate roof. Arts and Crafts Northern Renaissance style. Main range
E-shaped on plan: central cloakroom/office range with classrooms to
projecting side wings and rear; wing to rear left containing former
cookery room, caretaker's room and playsheds. Central 2-storey 5-bay
range with projecting central bay, linked by recessed corridor range to
tall single-storey 3-bay gabled wings. Chamfered plinth, moulded ashlar
sill stringcourse, 2-course yellow brick flush impost band to both
floors. Central range has 2-light window beneath yellow brick segmental
arch with 3 fluted and corniced ashlar keystones, flanked by
single-light windows beneath keyed segmental brick arches. Main
entrance to right has segmental-headed opening to internal porch, with
moulded brick jambs below and ashlar upper section with triple-keyed
moulded cambered arch, panel over with relief inscription "BOYS",
flanked by corbelled pilasters with fluted and panelled shafts, foliate
dosserets, fluted brackets, frieze with alternating rosettes and fluted
panels, moulded cornice and finials (missing to left). First floor:
central bay has large cross window and ornate ashlar relief panel
bearing date in oval medallion flanked by scrolled foliage, beneath
triple-keyed brick basket arch, the central key supporting a yellow
brick pilaster rising to a coped shaped gable with carved finials to
centre and each side. Side bays have pairs of windows beneath keyed
segmental brick arches, with original leaded stained glass to some upper
window panels. Moulded brick eaves cornice. Hipped roof. Recessed
flanking corridor sections have sill stringcourses, windows beneath
cambered brick arches, moulded brick eaves cornices. Side wings each
have a tall central cross window beneath an ashlar relief panel and
triple-keyed brick basket arch, flanked by a pair of lower windows
beneath keyed segmental brick arches, the central window flanked by
corbelled brick pilasters and with a similar pilaster carried by the
central keystone, the pilasters rising to a coped shaped gable with
carved finials. All windows are recessed, with glazing bars, wooden
architraves, moulded mullions and transoms.. Roofs have ventilator
ridge tiles and moulded finials. Left and right returns each have a
shaped gable to the rear cross range with fenestration and decoration
similar to street front, and a tall half dormer beneath a chamfered
ashlar lintel and hipped roof. Left return has a keyed segmental-headed
doorway. Former cookery room to rear left has gabled north and south
fronts, with tripartite window to north, moulded brick raking cornices.
Single-storey 6-bay playshed range to left contains a single-bay
caretaker's room to right, adjoining the cookery room, and an open
section to the left with a central spine wall dividing the former girls'
and infants' playshed to the north from the boys' playshed to the south,
the north side with a 5-bay arcade of cast iron columns, the south side
with a similar 4-bay opening and a walled-in bay to the left with a
round-headed doorway. Interior. Classrooms have moulded sill
stringcourses, roofs with arch braces carried on fluted stone corbels.
Doors in architraves with roundel ornament. Built to accommodate 360
boys. The first school to be built for Cleethorpes School Board
(founded 1894), with Girls' and Infants' sections to north, fronting
Barcroft Street (qv). A good and unusually complete example of a late
C19 Board School, built to a high standard of design and workmanship. E
W Hill Barcroft County School, 1956, pp 1-36; original architects'
plan in school.
Listing NGR: TA2909909837
