Cardinal Newman High School, Bellshill, North Lanarkshire

Description

Cardinal Newman High School, designed and built between 1972 and 1977, is a large late Modernist secondary school built by the Lanarkshire Education Authority Architects' Department, based on initial designs by Richard Cannon. The building is set in an open landscape near a residential area and Strathclyde Country Park. The main access to the school is across a narrow bridge over the railway line to the north of the school.

It has a centralised, segmental plan that radiates outward from a metal-clad substation with glazed upper sections. Curving around the substation in a semi-ellipse is the main four-storey teaching block. The teaching block has a raked-angle concrete frame and glazed curtain walls sloping outwards to either side with metal grid frames. The outer (south-facing) arc is accentuated by four projecting stair towers. There are raised external walkways with entrances at the two central stair towers. The ends of the teaching block are trapezoidal in shape and clad with red-brown engineering brick. The science, engineering and technical blocks, games hall, theatre and music blocks are linked to the main teaching block around its outer arc, stepping down in height towards the outer periphery of the plan. These outlying blocks are predominantly of red brick with splayed plans, sloped glazed sections and metal-clad roofs.

The structural framework is visible throughout the interior (seen in 2017) with girder roof structures and exposed brick and block work creating a paired-back but unified treatment. Corridors adjoining the outlying blocks largely have ribbon glazed top-lights. The ground floor of the teaching block is divided into four year-group areas, each with its own allocated dining halls and colour-coded communal areas. There are classrooms on the third floor and the art department is on the fourth floor. A training kitchen and restaurant area beside the reception has views over the interior of the games hall, and access to a viewing balcony. Planters are integrated into cills throughout the main circulation spaces.

There is a detached annex to the northeast of the school, known as Willowbank. This building, which has two mono-pitch roof sections, is not of special architectural or historic interest and is excluded from the listing. In accordance with Section 1 (4A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997 the following are excluded from the listing: Willowbank Annexe to northeast.

Statement of Interest

The Cardinal Newman High School is among a relatively small number of architecturally distinctive secondary school buildings of its period, showing a high degree of completeness and consistency throughout the design. The school is part of a forward thinking local authority school building programme, demonstrating aspirational collaboration between architects and educationalists. The plan form and material fabric of the building remains substantially intact, retaining its segmental plan with principal functions located at its centre and its stepped building profile. The school is a local landmark and a prominent feature of the skyline when viewed from the A725 carriageway to the west.

Age and Rarity

The Cardinal Newman High School was opened in 1977 following the merger of Elmwood Secondary in Bothwell, St Saviour's High School Bellshill and St Catherine's Viewpark. It was built on land previously occupied by Little Parkhead Farm (demolished 1968). The school has a capacity for 1,330 pupils, serving the Bellshill, Mossend, Viewpark and Tannochside areas of central Lanarkshire.

The post-war years in Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom were a period of transformation in social welfare which along with modern health care provision prioritised the establishment of high quality state-funded schools and universities. Increasing state intervention after the Second World War meant that local government inherited a much wider range of responsibilities including town planning and social services. The 1945 Education (Scotland) Act provided for free secondary education for all raising the school leaving age from 12 to 15. The doubling of pupil numbers between 1945 and the early 1970s led to substantial increases in Government funding for school buildings. Following the change in legislation and the publication of guidance such as The Modern School (1949) a clear separation of building types gradually evolved such as the 'house system' of building adjoining blocks that could be divided at a later date to accommodate changes, particularly between primary and secondary schools with some of the larger secondaries established as small campuses which gave access to community-based facilities.

Across the United Kingdom, school building programmes were being led by individual local authority architect's departments with almost 70% of architects in practice employed by the public sector until the mid-1970s. The influence of the Modern Movement was firmly embedded in councils whose architects had been trained in the 1930s and '40s at architectural schools which had promoted European as well as American modern architectural principles. Notable in Scotland were the school schemes of the Fife County Council Architect's Department and the Lanarkshire Education Authority Architects' Department. Both of these local authorities focused on tailored, one-off designs rather than adhering to standardised systems of school building.

In the interwar period, there was already a move away from the compact block plans of the late Victorian and Edwardian Board Schools towards long linear blocks which allowed for plenty of light and were in keeping with the theories of Modernism. The Modernist interest in architectural formalism, pioneered by architects like Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, continued into the early post-war period. In Scotland, for example, Basil Spence's high schools at Kilsyth (1939-54), East Kilbride (1956) and Thurso (1958) used a series of flat roofed blocks, creating small campus-like environments that were still formal spaces.

From the early 1960s through to the mid-1970s, modern architecture gradually changed from the structured formalism of the International Modern style to something more humanistic, expressive and informal. Changes in the planning of schools were triggered by changes in the school curriculum which called for more social activity alongside academic study, reflecting current aspirations for learning and social mobility. Local authorities worked closely with educationalists and architects either from private practice or from within their own organisations to create communal environments for their schools, with often irregular yet integrated plan forms and flexible use of open-plan space for example.

Buildings with a similarly progressive approach to design from this period include the Cumbernauld Technical College of 1971 by Gillespie, Kidd and Coia (LB47482) which has an explicitly sculptural concrete-clad megastructure, and Inverkeithing High School (1968-73) by Fife County Architects Services (LB49945). The large circular science and homecrafts departments of this school show a change to a more sculptural approach which was also emerging in other parts of Scotland, for example at Gillespie Kidd & Coia's St Peter's Seminary, Cardross.

Many large urban schools of the post-war period use standardised or pre-fabricated systems of construction such as the 'house system' and CLASP, and have often been significantly altered as educational policies and requirements have changed over the years. While large numbers of secondary school buildings were built from the 1950s to the 1970s, the best examples from this period, particularly for secondary schools, tend to be bespoke, one-off designs that display a cohesion of design features or architectural ideas that set them apart from their more standardised contemporaries.

Cardinal Newman High School is not a rare building type, but is among a relatively small number of architecturally distinctive secondary school buildings of its period, showing a high degree of completeness and consistency of design throughout. The school is part of a forward thinking local authority school building programme, demonstrating aspirational collaboration between architects and educationalists.

Architectural or Historic Interest

Interior

The interior survives largely unaltered and is a complete work of architectural design. The structure and materials of the building are consistently expressed throughout the interior spaces. Metal roof girders and exposed brick and block work evidencing a deliberately paired-back, industrial aesthetic create a unified interior scheme which complements the exterior of the building.

The first floor of the curved teaching block contains the library, Information Technology department and staff common rooms and offices. The internal walls of the library and staff rooms feature sloping glazed partitions enabling views down to the dining areas below, and borrowed light also entering through glazed sections of corridor on the floor above creating a hierarchy of internalised space and function.

Many internal doors are original and have glazed sections with rounded corners. Wall cladding is largely contemporary with the construction of the building.

Plan form

The radiating centralised and segmented plan-form (comprising around one third of a circle) is distinctive and reflects progressive ideas in school design during the late 1960s and early 1970s in Scotland. The segmental plan form is expressed throughout the structure and informs the overall design of the building. The arrangement of the main teaching block and the wide range of easily accessible teaching facilities were designed with ambulatory movement and flexibility in mind. The engineering block was added a few years after initial completion fitting in with the original design concept. The internalised arrangement of common areas, 'unallocated classrooms', dining halls and library and teaching rooms towards the centre of the plan exemplify contemporary educational theories about social space and the importance of the children's experience.

Technological excellence or innovation, material or design quality

By the late 1950s, some of the more architecturally innovative schemes for schools were by architects in the public sector. Around this time, the early modernist concepts of imposed order on society prevalent in the 1930s and '40s and typified by horizontal, intersecting blocks, was shifting towards socially inclusive architectural solutions and, by contrast, was exemplified by more expressive plans.

The distinctive sculptural form and massing of Cardinal Newman High School is a notable example of this change in modern architectural theory. The self-contained, internalised design of this school reflects contemporary interest in how plan, structure and volume relate directly to educational and social organisation. The building uses modern materials, including steel, brick, concrete and glass to express its curved structure and is particularly successful in creating a consistently rigorously self-contained architectural scheme.

The university work of architect James Stirling is relevant to Richard Cannon's approach to the design for Cardinal Newman High School. Andrew Melville Hall (1963) for St Andrew's University (Listed category A, LB51846) is a stepped, V-shaped hall of residence that has taken into account both the user and the topography. Stirling's 'red trilogy' of university buildings in England are also relevant. The University of Leicester Engineering Building, 1959-63 (listed at Grade II*), the History Faculty Library, University of Cambridge, 1968 (listed at Grade II) and the Florey Building, Queen's College, Oxford, 1971 (listed at Grade II) are all sculpturally expressive buildings with a strong sense of civic identity. They draw on such architectural precedents as German Expressionism and Russian Constructivism of the earlier 20th century, as well as the industrial vernacular of the north of England and central Scotland. A similar diverse mix of industrial and historical architectural references can also be found in the design for the Cardinal Newman High School.

Cardinal Newman High School was built to a design by Richard Cannon during his nine year employment by Lanarkshire Education Authority Architect's Department. School building projects carried out by this department during this period were sympathetic and reflected the close collaborations between architects and educationalists at the local level. Team and project leaders with Lanarkshire County Architects around the time Cardinal Newman was built include Depute Director Robert Forsyth, John Sutherland and Thomas Ewing. Working in partnership with Tom Elder after 1980, Richard Cannon has designed many notable public and private buildings, primarily in Glasgow and the West of Scotland. In 2016 the practice received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland. Cardinal Newman High School may be seen as a defining formative work for Cannon, where contemporary educationalist theories and experimental architectural practice combine to create an individualistic and complete design.

Setting

Cardinal Newman High School is situated on the west edge of a predominantly residential area of Bellshill, to the north of Strathclyde Country Park. The immediate setting is level and open with large playing fields, fringed by housing and small-scale industrial units. The access to the school over a railway bridge creates a sense of fortress-like isolation and contrast with the surrounding buildings. The school is a local landmark and a prominent feature of the skyline when viewed from the A725 carriageway to the west.

Regional variations

There are no known regional variations.

Close Historical Associations

There are no known associations with a person or event of national importance at present (2017).

External Links

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.