Building record 1540600000 - Chestnut Lane First School

History:
School building was both a symbolic aspiration of post-war Britain and an urgent need, driven by the ‘baby boom’, the raising of the school leaving age, planned new towns and estates and the reconstruction of bomb-damaged buildings. Programmes of new schools were coordinated and designed by local education authorities with loans and oversight from central government. Demand was met by prefabricated ‘kits of parts’, either sponsored by public authorities or developed privately. Elsewhere, where bricks and bricklayers were readily available, like in Buckinghamshire, traditional techniques were adapted to incorporate large windows and flat roofs. Collaboration between architects and educationists could result in expressive plans which facilitated patterns of learning and movement. The requirement for abundant daylight and outdoor access led to dispersed layouts, a trend which was countered by tight cost limits and constrained sites. In the best examples child-scaled proportions, landscaping, bright colour schemes or works of art combined to create a distinctive visual aesthetic.
The 1944 Education Act divided schooling into primary and secondary stages with a break at age 11. Some authorities provided separate infant and junior schools with a break at age 7 plus; others provided primary schools for the 5-11 age range. School sizes likewise varied from two-class village schools to primaries of 480 pupils. Informal, ‘child-centred’ learning through first-hand experience, advocated in the influential Plowden report of 1967, was encouraged by the provision of special areas for quiet and messy work and more open layouts. At Buckinghamshire and Hampshire a mix of enclosed class bases and shared space was provided, allowing teachers to strike their own balance between varied groups and activities and traditional whole-class teaching.
In Buckinghamshire, the County Architect Fred Pooley favoured a ‘rationalised traditional’ construction as an alternative to prefabrication. He believed schools could be constructed durably and economically by exploiting traditional local crafts and industries: the brickworks, tileries, joiners and small but skilled firm of builders. Pooley claimed that using hand-made bricks added only one percent to the cost of a building, whilst adding richness and durability to exteriors. School’s planning modules were based on brick dimensions, and high standards were specified, resulting in many square meters being rebuilt.
Woodside School, Amersham (listed at Grade II), is said to have marked a sea change in Buckinghamshire schools design. Built 1956-1957 to designs by Ministry of Education architect David Medd, so popular was it with the county that it formed the basis for the design of a number of other schools; Chestnut Lane, and neighbouring Elangeni are relatively early iterations. Primary school planning began to be based around a series of specialised spaces varying according to group age, size and activity, with areas for messy practical work, crafts, arts, basic science. Pooley’s team boiled these down to a basic planning unit of paired classrooms with small practical and quiet areas, with attached cloakrooms and WCs. Schools were then planned from different configurations of these elements, speeding up the process of design without resorting to predetermined models.
Chestnut Lane School dates from 1969; it stands in the wooded grounds of a former Victorian villa and was built to serve the expanding suburb of Amersham on the Hill. It was originally a junior school catering for about 200 children ranging in age from five to 12 years, though as demand in the area grew, it was changed to a first school, and a new school, the neighbouring Elangeni Middle School, was constructed to cater for the older juniors.
Chestnut Lane comprises three wings of classrooms, and a dining hall, assembly hall, library and
administration block, planned around a courtyard. Each classroom is square and has an adjoining practical area and individual entrance via an outshot lobby containing cloakroom and WCs. The classrooms are identified by peaked rooflights of patent glazing, matched in distinctiveness by the opposed monopitches of the dining and assembly halls. Some subdivision has been made within the administration block, and all windows have been replaced.
Details:
Junior school, designed 1966-67, completed 1969.
ARCHITECT: Buckinghamshire County Council Architects’ Department led by Fred Pooley, job architect Tony Kirby.
MATERIALS: deep brown brick laid in stretcher bond, with areas of weatherboarding and render, with
concrete-tiled roofs.
PLAN: the school stands in the former grounds of a villa. It comprises a northern range containing offices, a library and assembly and dining halls, with three, freestanding wings of classrooms, around a central courtyard. Each classroom is L-shaped, with a large square main room and an adjoining practical area to the side. Each has an individual entrance via an outshot lobby containing a cloakroom and WCs, creating a staggered plan to each range.
EXTERIOR: the school is single storeyed throughout. The classroom wings are characterised by low rooflines with shallowly-pitched roofs, with tall, steeply-pitched glazed lanterns rising from the ridge above each classroom. The classroom wings have staggered elevations; in the recessed sections of those facing onto the central courtyard are the entrances and glazed returns.
The northern block has a long, low range of offices facing south onto the courtyard, with the large, opposing monopitched masses of the halls on the north side. The halls have large areas of glazing, including a strip of clerestory glazing below weatherboarding beneath the ridge. The low range of offices has full-height glazing at either end, with occasional windows in between.
INTERIOR: the classrooms have a main, open-plan room with a smaller practical area to one side. The main room is open to the pitched roof, which has a long opening to the lantern. The walls are, generally, painted brick.
The entrance lobby of the northern range leads to offices, the library, and the dining and assembly halls. Walls are plastered, and the ceiling has long, narrow openings to vaulted roof lights. The dining and assembly halls have painted brick walls, and acoustic panelled ceilings. The assembly hall has a recessed section for the stage, and the dining hall leads into the former kitchen, now an art room.
Selected Sources:
Books and journals
Harwood, E, England’s Schools: History, Architecture and Adaptation , (2010).
Saint, A, Towards a Social Architecture: The Role of School-Building in Post-War, (1987).
Other
Buckinghamshire County Council, 1977, Buckinghamshire: 25 Years of Architecture.
Franklin, Geraint, with Harwood, Elain, Taylor, Simon & Whitfield, Matthew, Research Report Series
no.33-2012. England’s Schools 1962-88. A Thematic Survey (2012).
Chestnut Lane School is not recommended for listing for the following principal reasons:
- Architectural interest: the school is neatly composed though architecturally modest, and is planned in
line with established principles;
- Alteration: the use of traditional construction materials was a key characteristic of Buckinghamshire
schools, and the replacement of the windows and areas of weatherboarding have lessened the integrity of the whole;
- Interiors: there are few notable features, finishes or details internally;
- Historic interest: not exhibiting innovation in terms of planning, nor responding to changes in
educational philosophy (B1).