Description

SJ 3590 SW LIVERPOOL PLEASANT STREET

392/54/10111 Pleasant Street School

II

School and attached office, formerly school and master's house. 1818, extended 1851, with further alterations and extensions in 1889 and 1894. Red brick laid to Flemish bond with ashlar sandstone dressings, moulded eaves cornice beneath a slate roof covering laid to diminishing courses. Brick chimney stacks, 2 mid slope to west gable, 1 ridge stack and 2 front wall stacks. Linear plan, with main frontage to Pleasant Street, and with integral staff accommodation at west end, returning onto Green Lane..
FRONT (north) elevation: 2 storeys, 12 window bays to first floor, bays 1,3 and 8 of multiple light form. 3 ground floor doorways, 2 with deep small-paned overflights below segmental brick arches, the third at the west end with V-jointed rustication to ashlar surround, and 3 pane overflight. The door gives access to a through passage with a stone staircase which also separates former master's dwelling from classrooms. Single windows are sashes ,asymmetrically divided and some small-paned, multiple windows have C20 joinery between moulded columns. Centrally placed sign between floors reads `PLEASANT STREET BOARD SCHOOL'.
SIDE (west) ELEVATION: Gable with semi-circular headed doorway, with flanking attaches Doric columns which carry a semi-circular fanlight with curved glazing bars . Four-panelled door. Above, stacked sash windows, that to the first floor with glazing bars.
REAR (south) ELEVATION: Late C19 hipped- roofed 2 storey extension to centre of main range. East end gable linked by tall brick boundary wall to Experimenting Room of 1894, with first floor classroom having a ventilated sub-floor area above arcaded open bays to ground floor. First floor doorway to north gable served by iron staircase.
HISTORY: The school was built by the Benevolent Society of St Patrick, but was multi-denominational. The purpose of the foundation was the instructing in Reading, Writing and Arithmetic; the clothing and apprenticing of Poor Children descended of Irish parents'. The children were separated by sex and were taught on different floors until 1852, when, following the construction of an extension for infants, the school was re-organised into a mixed system. In 1866, the name of the school was changed to the Hibernian British School', and by 1874 the school had been transferred to the School Board.
The Pleasant Street School is a survival from the period before the first allocation of public funding for school building, and its development reflects progressive changes in educational thinking and organisation throughout the C19. Surviving examples are rare nationally, and this example , which has undergone little alteration either to the school, or the master's house since the late C19 is additionally significant as an early example of multi-denominational provision.

Pleasant Street School' Historic Buildings Report N.B.R. 95741. R.C.H.M.E. 1996 .

Listing NGR: SJ3534190190

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26561645

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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