Roedean School Main Buildings, Rottingdean Coastal, The City of Brighton and Hove

Description

BRIGHTON

TQ3503SW ROEDEAN WAY
577-1/58/761 (East side)
Roedean School, main buildings

Girls' school. 1897-8. The principal school building is the
150m long range of school house and boarding houses built in
1897-8; there are other buildings of special architectural or
historic interest attached to it, namely the chapel, of
1905-6, and the art, music and library wing of 1910-11 with
the headmistress's house; the 1897-8 building is the work of
John W Simpson, the others are by JW Simpson and Maxwell
Ayrton. Red brick laid in English bond, roughcast with Bath
stone dressings, roof of tiles recently renewed. The original
building is set out almost symmetrically with a central school
house flanked by boarding houses set forward on either side,
thus creating an open quadrangle in the centre. The school
house is loosely Jacobethan in style, while the boarding
houses take their character from contemporary Arts and Crafts
domestic architecture.
EXTERIOR: the school house front is of 7-window range, with 3
storeys and attic, and is set out with a central clock tower
flanked by 2 gabled bays to either side, with staircase towers
set back at either end; plinth of red brick; 2 storey canted
and parapeted bay to clock tower incorporating a round-arched
entrance with Gibbs surround to the archivolt, flanked by
pairs of blocked Ionic columns carrying an entablature with
pulvinated frieze and vase ornaments flanking a broken
pediment which carries an emblem of the school; all windows
flat-arched, those to either side of the entrance under the
same entablature; ground- and first-floor windows have
mullions and transoms, with dripmoulds, those to second and
attic floors have dripmoulds only. The gables have stone bands
running across at sill and lintel levels, a motif repeated
elsewhere in the building. The clock tower has a gilded clock
at attic level, embattled parapet of stone, octagonal corner
turrets with ogee lead caps, and a pyramidal roof; the
staircase towers have stone quoins to the upper stages, stone
parapet and an octagonal lead-covered cupola with ogee lead
cap and finial. Steps up to central entrance flanked by short
splayed balustrades.
Each boarding house consists of an asymmetrically gabled
4-storey range running north-south, and a 2-storey range
running east-west, and they are grouped in pairs to the east
and west of the school house, with the tall, asymmetrical
gables at the outer end of either group. Segmental-arched
porch with hollow-chamfered mouldings and carved label stop,
giving onto segmental-arched entrance; beside the entrance a
2-storey canted bay of equal dimensions on all 3 sides, with
9-light mullioned and transomed window to ground floor and
9-light mullioned window to first floor, and a parapet
embattled only at the centre; upper windows all mullioned, one
having a central blank stone panel as if for an inscription;
the 2-storey range has brickwork to the ground floor with
stone dressings to windows, a lean-to roof which forms a
canopy between bays, and a gabled staircase wing; brick stack
between the 2 ranges. The returns of the eastern group of
boarding houses have an external chimneystack at the south end
with offsets and brick pilasters, and a single-storey canted
bay with embattled parapet to the centre; the returns of the
western group have the same details except that the base of
the external stack has a gable form of brick imposed upon it.
The dining wing of 1963, attached to the west end of the main
school buildings, is not of special architectural or historic
interest.
INTERIOR: the interior of the school house includes the
vestibule with 2 pairs of Doric columns flanking the
cross-passage, bronze lanterns to a short staircase
balustrade, and panel of c1900 listing the founders' names in
gilded letters. Staircase of 2 flights, then one, with
panelling to the outer walls and a balustrade of simplified
Jacobethan character; the cross-passage on the first floor has
a pair of Ionic columns distyle in antis; hall at mezzanine
level, relatively plain in character with panelling inscribed
with pupils' names, segmental arches in front of the windows,
south gallery, and roof carried on composite semicircular
trusses.
The art, music and library wing is rendered with stone
dressings and roof of tiles; 3 storeys and a 4th in the stair
tower to the west. It is linked to the l897-8 building by a
broad segmental arch with a room over; there is a shallow,
3-storey gabled wing to the east, whose ground- and
first-floor windows are contained within a single stone
architrave with blind arcading to the spandrels. Windows
Tudor-arched and flat-arched. The rest of the south front of
the building has 2 slightly-projecting gabled bays of
one-window range, with a single-storey canted bay between them
with an 8-light window; the second-floor windows are set back
behind an embattled parapet and have virtually continuous
glazing. Stack to the pyramidally-roofed corner tower, and
stacks on either side of the eastern wing. The headmistress's
house is rendered with stone dressings and roof of tiles,
recently renewed. The entrance front, facing south-east, has
wings splayed to either side of the central flat-arched
entrance with moulded architrave under a segmental arch, with
Tudor-arched windows above flanked by pilasters. Each wing has
a slightly canted 2-storey bay with a transom to the ground
floor window and a deep parapet. Late C20 garage addition on
south front. Stepped brick stack to rear.
The interior of the library has panelled walls incorporating 7
book stacks and a large stone ingle-nook fireplace at the east
end of unusual design: flat-arched hearth with scalloped
corners under a bracketed mantelshelf, the whole flanked by a
window on each side and set back under a broad bracketed
lintel in the form of a triangular pointed arch so shallow as
to be almost flat; this arch is enclosed within what can only
be described as a large, introverted, eared and shouldered
architrave which rises to ceiling height: the ear and shoulder
break inwards, giving room to small pilasters at the top
corners. The walls of the art room are covered with tiles
executed by pupils in the 1930s and 1940s, many dated and
signed; most are decorated with stylised foliage in painted
enamels, but one notable series of relief-moulded tiles
depicts scenes in the life of Roedean School.
The chapel is rendered with stone dressings and a roof of
slate. The east end has a central gabled section set slightly
forward and flanked by buttresses, with an east window of
Palladian form but with 2 mullions and a transom under the
central round arch. The north side has the lower part
rendered, the upper part in stone with clerestory windows;
modillion cornice, and gables over each of the 4 bays,
reflecting the vaulting of the north aisle. The south side,
much higher because of the fall in the ground, is detailed in
the same way but without the gables. The west end has 2 outer
bays of one-window range and a central gabled section with a
pair of round-arched windows to the narthex set back under a
pair of segmental arches, with a bracketed balcony over that;
and a tall, round-arched recess above the balcony, whose face
is decorated with a cross in stone. Bell tower with domed
cupola to south.
The interior of the chapel mixes English Classical with
Byzantine elements in an unusual way. The nave walls are
panelled in wood in a late C17 style, to a height of about 2
metres, and the rest of the walls are covered with grey-white
marble articulated with bands of golden-buff marble. The altar
stands in a central curved recess in a marble, galleried
screen articulated by pilasters carrying a full entablature
and gallery with urns, and is flanked by flat-arched entrances
with lunettes over, the spandrels filled with neo-Byzantine
openwork ornament. A marble screen immediately in front of the
east window repeats its Palladian arrangement, mullions and
transom. The other windows are flat-arched and of 2 lights set
in pairs with a lunette above, each pair being set back in a
round-arched panel; 2 pairs of windows to the chancel, 5 pairs
to the south, 4 to the north aisle. 4 bays to the nave, with
an organ gallery over the narthex, the bays articulated by
pilasters on the south, antae on the north, with bases and
capitals of bronze, the capitals neo-Byzantine in style;
barrel-vaulted plaster roof with panelling and bay-leaf
ornament. Round-arched entrance at west end, set in a square
architrave with a frieze inscribed 'AUDI FILIA TE VIDE'. The
south aisle is stepped up to just below the height of the
panelling, forming a kind of gallery, and has transverse
barrel vaults over each bay. The windows are all filled with
C20 memorial glass, the most notable in design being the pair
in the second bay from the east in the north aisle, both by
Morris and Company, of 1917 and 1920.
To the north of the eastern group of boarding houses is a
2-storey range continuing the line of the art, music and
library block, rendered to the ground floor with late C20
first floor added; and to the north of that is 2-storey
rendered block with a foundation stone of 1927; these
buildings are not of special architectural or historic
interest.
(Carder T: The Encyclopaedia of Brighton: Lewes: 1990-).

Listing NGR: TQ3507303136

External Links

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