Description

This List entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 06/02/2018

LANSDOWN ROAD (east side),
The Royal High School

(Formerly listed as: Royal School)

05/08/75

II

School. Dated 1856, with considerable alterations and extensions in 1864-1866 and 1883-1884. By James Wilson, extensions by WG Habershon and Fawckner.
MATERIALS: Rock-faced limestone with freestone dressings, steeply pitched slate roofs with ridge and valley stacks.
PLAN: Irregular plan.
EXTERIOR: Elaborate Gothic Revival school complex. Two storeys attics and basements, ten-window range. Pointed arched stone mullioned windows, many with leaded tracery, trefoil heads to lights of first floor and attic windows, moulded kneelers to coped gables with stone finials. Main feature right-of-centre entrance tower in three stages. Pierced quatrefoils to parapet, gargoyles to cornice, slightly trefoiled three-light louvered openings with plate tracery, pierced aprons and shallow weathered sills to each side of upper stage. Gabled angle buttresses to lower stages flank clock in pointed arched triangle over two-light window with similar arch to that at top and moulded sill stringcourse. Below are carved shields flanking cartouche with inscriptions over moulded pointed arch to set back door. Large gabled range to left has circular panel to apex, canted oriel with rich foliate spandrels to pointed arched three-light window, pierced trefoil parapet and carved bear and lion on corbel. Two three-light windows to ground floor. To left of gable, octagonal turret with conical roof and elaborate decoration to top. Set back from left of turret smaller gable with two-light windows to each floor and external stack to first floor of left return. Three window wing set further back to left has three half-dormers with two-light windows above machicolated eaves, three-light windows to first floor and four-light windows to ground floor articulated by off-set buttresses. Tall projecting gable to left has carved triangular panel to apex, flat-arched four-light window to first floor and similar five-light window to ground floor. To far left are various flat roofed and gabled blocks, possibly later. To right of tower similar set back three-window wing similar to that on left, terminal taller gable has small trefoil panel to apex, three-light window to first floor and paired two-light windows to ground floor. Right return has variety of similar windows. Rear lateral crested roof four-window right wing, similar to set back ranges, has two-light windows to dormers and first floor and three-light windows to ground floor.
INTERIOR: Not inspected.

HISTORY: School was founded as Bath and Lansdown Proprietary College, a boy's day school under the patronage of the Duke of Beaufort and the Marquis of Lansdowne, whose arms (along with those of the Rev. Sydney H. Widrington) appear on the building. It failed due to its distance from Bath, and was sold for £1000 in 1862. It was refounded as the Royal School for Daughters of Officers of the Army, and was opened 24th August 1865. It was modelled on the Royal Naval Female School of 1840. It was announced (1996) that it is to be amalgamated with Bath High School (qv) as the Royal Bath High School with effect from 1998.

SOURCES: (The Builder (1858), 194-95 (illus.); The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and Bristol: London: 1958-: 215; Jackson N: Nineteenth Century Bath - Architects and Architecture: Bath: 1991-: 219).

Listing NGR: ST7469566532

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26673540

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.

Recommended Books

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  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House