The plaque, on a north facing end wall, has the
inscription:
Christ
Church
Middlesex
This house and these schools
were
erected A.D. 1873.
In lieu of
The house and parochial schools
(as
shewn above)
that formerly stood
at the north west angle of
the
church yard of this parish
The house referred to 'as shewn above' is carved in relief
above the inscription. It even includes carvings of a small boy and girl over
their respective entrances.
The British History website [visit
link] tells us, in an entry dated 1957, that:
"Christ Church Schools had their origin in a charity
school which was founded in the parish in 1708. By 1732 there were thirty
children in attendance, and in 1782 the number had risen to seventy.
The boys were taught in a room in a house in Brick Lane and the girls in a house
in Booth Street (now Princelet Street east of Brick Lane). A fund of £700
had accrued by 1782 (including a legacy of £200 from John Cob, a hair merchant
of the parish) and in that year a faculty was obtained permitting a school to be
built on the edge of the churchyard. This site, which measured eighty-six
feet from east to west and twenty-eight feet from north to south, abutted
on Red Lion Street in front of the west end of the church and had formerly
been occupied by the parish engine-house. The school was erected in
1782 and faced north. It is illustrated by a plaque on the present school
building in Brick Lane. It had a charming brick and stone front of late
eighteenth-century Classical design, with a central feature slightly recessed
between two triangular-pedimented wings. In the centre were two doorways, set in
a colonnade, and in the wall face above were two niches, containing statues of a
boy and a girl. Each wing had two ground-floor and attic windows, all with flat
arches of gauged brickwork, and the first-floor windows were underlined by a
pedestal-course, carried across the central colonnade.
All children from eight to ten years of age whose
parents resided within half a mile of the school were admitted, and no fees were
charged. Living accommodation for the master and mistress were
provided.
On 16 September 1817, a National School was established
by Joseph Wilson, of Milk Street, in temporary premises in Wheler Street. The
following year the Duke of York laid the foundation stone of a permanent school
building on the south side of Quaker Street . The architect was James Beck and
the builders, whose contract was for £2,596, were James Benson and Son. The
site was leased for sixty-one years from G. H. Wheler in 1819, and the new
school opened on 2 July 1820 as the ’Spital fields National School for the
education of the poor in the principles of the Established Church’. It was
declared that ’no poverty however extreme and no difference in religious
sentiments in the parents shall be deemed a sufficient cause of exclusion to the
children provided they conform to the regulations of the
school’.
The line of Commercial Street cut through Red Lion
Street and made it necessary for the Commissioners of Woods and Forests to
purchase and clear the Charity School site. The sale was effected in 1845, but
the purchase price of £1,566 was not agreed until 1850. It appears that
owing to a decline of income the Charity School and National School were united
in 1842 for instruction only. The Charity School was occupied until April 1851
and was pulled down between that date and April 1852. The pupils were moved to
the National School and both were conducted by a joint committee, though the
funds of each were kept separately. In 1869 a faculty was obtained to erect
a new school with houses for a master and mistress at the east end of the
churchyard, facing Brick Lane. The funds of both the Charity and National
Schools were applied to the costs of the building which amounted to
£5,953.
The new building, which was to be constructed on arches
in order to avoid disturbing the graves, was begun in 1873 from the designs
of James Tolley and Daniel Robert Dale of 13 Angel Court, Throgmorton Street.
The builder was Christopher Forrest of Victoria Park Square, Bethnal Green. When
the new schools were completed in 1874, the trustees of the Quaker Street
National School surrendered their lease. The building still
stands.
The present building is set back from the west line of
Brick Lane and consists of a single storey of class-rooms raised over covered
playgrounds, one for boys and the other for girls and infants, both now closed
in and converted for other uses. The class-rooms are reached by four staircases,
two rising from the playgrounds and two from Brick Lane. The north staircase is
contained in a bay-fronted lobby, and the south staircase rises alongside a wing
originally the headmaster's house, containing two storeys and a roof garret. The
shallow front court is screened by an elaborate cast-iron railing, with a
centrally placed drinking fountain of stone. The group is picturesque in its
spiky Victorian Gothic way, with red brick walls, crudely diapered with black,
and heavy stone dressings to the angles and openings. The flat two-centred
arches of the playground arcade are of stone, with keystones merging into a band
course, and the four windows above are gabled. The steep roofs are slated, with
bands of shaped slates, and are finished with ornamental ridge tiles. A dummy
window in the flank wall of the headmaster's house contains a relief
representation of the old school building above an inscribed
cartouche."
The building is Grade II listed and the entry at the English
Heritage website [visit
link] tells us:
"Church of England School. 1873-4, to the designs of
James Tolley and Robert Dale of 13 Angel Court Throgmorton Street. Red brick in
English bond with blue brick and stone dressings. Roofs of slate with decorative
ridge tile to centre range and entrance porch/stair to right; the latter topped
by a decorative metal finial. One and two storeys. Recessed centre range of two
storeys and four window range containing, on the first floor, classrooms and on
the ground floor a covered playground that was entered by pointed-segmental
arches, now enclosed; first-floor windows finish as gable facing, half dormers.
Projecting wings at either end of recessed range: that to the north polygonal in
plan, with Tudor-arched entrance leading to stair; that to the south gable
facing with hipped dormer to return; the latter served as a schoolmaster's
house. Just visible above the ridge of the main roof is the hip of a rear wing
which was once crested by a cupola, only the base of which remains. A dummy
window on the return of the schoolmaster's house contains a stone plaque, the
top part of which bears the image of the earlier school in high relief and the
bottom part of which bears the following legend: This house and these schools/
were erected in A. D. 1873/ in lieu of/ the house and parochial schools/ as
shewn above./ The Former stood at the northwest angle of/ the Churchyard of the
Parish. Christ Church Schools had their origin in the parish's charity schools
which were founded in 1708. The school moved into purpose-built premises in 1782
which are pictured on the stone plaque. The Christ Church Schools were united
with the local National Schools in 1850."