Corelli College (formerly Kidbrooke Comprehensive School for Girls), Greenwich, London

Summary

Comprehensive secondary school of 1951-1954 for the London County Council to designs of Charles Pike of Slater, Moberley, Uren and Pike with Ove Arup as structural consultants. Sixth-form block added in 1973. Some C21 alterations.

Description

Comprehensive secondary school of 1951-1954 for the London County Council to designs of Charles Pike of Slater, Moberley, Uren and Pike with Ove Arup as structural consultants. Some C21 alterations.

MATERIALS: reinforced concrete frame, with a shell concrete roof to the hall, covered in copper. The blocks have yellow brick walling with additional cladding of shingles (on the upper levels) and tile, with large expanses of glazing to the communal areas. There is a mix of original steel framed and replacement uPVC windows.

PLAN: truncated H-shaped plan of three, three to four-storey classroom blocks*, all of which all excluded from the listing except the southern block where the principal interest is found in the former art room. A central link block contains the library and staff room, behind a frontage onto Corelli Road comprising the double-height foyer and assembly hall. The former kitchen block forms a short additional spur on the north side of the link block.

Three detached gymnasia* complete the H-plan to the south-west with a further detached double gymnasium* to the south-east. The later detached, two-storey, sixth-form block* closes the H-plan at the western end creating the second of two landscaped courtyards*. A caretaker’s bungalow* is situated at the entrance from Corelli Road. All of these structures are excluded from the listing.

EXTERIOR: the entrance/reception block, which faces east onto Corelli Road, has full height glazing with a grey-coloured metal frame and a glazed canopy over the electronic sliding doors. This is a C21 replacement of the original which was in a similar style but with timber frames to the windows and three pairs of double doors, covered by an upswept canopy with metal supports. The brickwork panel to the south of the glazing retains the large original counterpoised open clock. The overhanging eaves are sheathed in copper. The brick steps with paving and metal railings are original. The south elevation of the block is of two-storeys with a projecting upper storey supported on pilotis. This has had the original steel windows replaced in uPVC (as has occurred on roughly two-thirds of the elevations throughout the school) but it retains its cladding of Canadian wood shingles. The assembly hall which adjoins the entrance block to the north has a copper sheathed concrete dome, 76mm thick, supported on concrete columns at each corner. On the east side the concrete walls are clad at the upper level with the original shingles but on the west side these have been replaced with ribbed sheet metal cladding. The upper level has a large expanse of glazing. This has been replaced, with a transom added to the panels. Below the windows is a brick, flat-roofed, gallery, with replacement glazing to a different pattern to the original. On the east elevation the gallery glazing has been truncated and doors added at the north end.

The elevation of the south classroom block is broken up by asymmetric facades, changes in roof line, height (between three and four storeys), and shingle cladding. The elliptical art studio, on the top of this block, has a flat concrete roof with four rows of circular skylights. The former kitchen block has a concrete arched roof with three rows of circular skylights.

The spine block has fully glazed stairwells at either end with the original glazing. The block originally had an open ground floor supported on concrete pillars but this was later enclosed, now with glazed uPVC panels, and the east side has a later glazed, single-storey, extension. The library and staff rooms have concrete balconies with metal railings and there is a roof terrace with a flat-roofed pavilion with a crinkle-crankle timber screen.

INTERIOR: the double height entrance foyer has a single concrete balcony on the south side giving onto offices. This has the original steel balustrade with timber handrail and supports angled timber struts. The gallery is accessed by cantilevered concrete stairs at either end. These have metal balusters and timber handrails. The east stair has timber edging to the steps giving a zig-zag effect while the west stair has timber treads. The foyer is lit by round skylights. The reception desk* is a C21 replacement.

On the north side of the foyer, timber folding screen doors give access to the assembly hall. This has a stage at the north end and raised galleries on the east and west sides with oversailing concrete canopies. These have metal balustrades with timber handrails and balusters with lozenge-shaped cut-outs. The front of the stage and the galleries are of beech and West African iroko woods. There are original glazed doors with large steel handles either side of the stage and at the ends of the gallery. The floor is of Japanese Maple and there is a stepped suspended ceiling of fibrous plaster with inset lighting.

The staff rooms and library retain their original layout and some fittings although the woodblock floor in the staffroom is a later replacement. Stairs in the spine block retain their panelled timber detailing. The server hatches from the kitchen remain (the remainder of the former kitchen block interior*, apart from the barrel vaulted roof, has been altered and is not of special interest). The classrooms* have been subject to change and the large dual-purpose classrooms have been partitioned (although evidence of the tracks for the folding screens can be seen). Most, if not all, have lost their hardwood block floors.

A feature of the interiors is the playful use of a lozenge motif in various features including fixed benches and shelves in the corridors, cut-outs on stair treads, in the soffits of the foyer skylights and design of its (replacement) lino floor, and in the timber supports of the hall gallery balustrade.

* Pursuant to s1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that these aforementioned features are not of special architectural or historic interest.

History

Corelli College was built between 1951 and September 1954 and, when it opened as the Kidbrooke Comprehensive School for Girls, was the first purpose-built fully comprehensive school to open in London. It was designed for the London County Council (LCC) by Slater, Moberley, Uren and Pike, with Charles Pike as lead architect and Ove Arup and Partners as consulting structural engineers. The school was formally opened on 15 June 1955 by Countess Mountbatten of Burma.

Plans for the school were originally drawn up in 1949, when the architect was asked to pay special attention to ‘the size of the school, possible methods in which it could work, the sub-division into units and, above all, the need to remember that we were dealing with small human beings’. By the time the original plans had been completed new economies had been introduced and, as stated by the architect, ‘in the face of new standards for school premises it became necessary to adopt a new planning approach so as to eliminate non-essential circulation space, use certain rooms for more than one purpose, and so achieve a drastic reduction of cost’. Designed for 2,000 girls, in the event, the final cost of £730,000 produced a net cost per place somewhat above the average for schools of this period. The school aroused a degree of controversy when the minister of education, Florence Horsbrugh, stepped in to prevent the LCC’s plans to close Eltham Hill Girls' Grammar School and transfer the pupils to Kidbrooke.

The 36 classrooms were accommodated on three main wings with a link block containing staff accommodation and library. The design provided continuous corridor circulation at ground-floor level but on other floors shorter lengths of corridor were provided with larger classrooms providing linking units. The two northern blocks had a dual function as dining rooms served by an attached kitchen block. A large entrance foyer and assembly hall, unusually capable of housing the entire school, were provided, along with six laboratories and five detached gymnasia. The school featured a complex loudspeaker system.

In 1973 a small, detached, two-storey, sixth-form block, also by Charles Pike who set up his own practice shortly after the completion of Kidbrooke, was added at the west end of the school. In September 1980 the school became co-educational with its first mixed intake and changed its name to Corelli College when it became an academy in September 2011.

Reasons for Listing

Corelli College, Corelli Road, Kidbrooke, London Borough of Greenwich, formerly Kidbrooke Comprehensive School for Girls, built for the London County Council in 1951-1954 to designs by Charles Pike of Slater, Moberley, Uren and Pike, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* for its carefully considered, Swedish-influenced, design with a number of innovative features;
* for its structural interest including the elegant concrete shell roofs to the hall, kitchen block and elliptical art room engineered by Ove Arup. These features are emblematic of design in the immediate post-war period;
* for the high quality materials and design of fittings, particularly to the entrance block and hall;

Historic interest:

* as the first purpose-built comprehensive school in London, a leader in the introduction of comprehensive education, and amongst the first in England;
* as a design by a noted C20 architectural practice.

External Links

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