HER 12221 - CHARTERHOUSE SCHOOL (MAIN BUILDING)

School building. 1872 by P C Hardwick with later additions, principally the Great Hall, 1884, by Sir A Blomfield (Seaborne and Lowe, p42). Bargate rubblestone with ashlar dressings. Plain tile roofs, with red and blue tile banding to elements of main elevation (Saunderite House re-tiled 1988), Plan: quadrangle, open on west side, having bell-tower to centre of central range, original school chapel (now concert hall) forming right (south) wing, and boarding accommodation (Saunderites) in left wing; right side of central range extends to rear, having boarding accommodation (Gownboys) and linking, on south side, to another boarding house (Verites) which is in line with former chapel; to rear of left side of central range is a cloister, linking to T-shaped classroom addition of c.1900; to rear of cloister and Gownboys house a cloister links to former Great Hall of 1885, now library, museum and hall. 1872 buildings 2 storeys with attics, with 4-storey water towers; Great Hall and c.1900 addition of 2 storeys. In French Gothic style having: chamfered plinths; quoins; offset buttresses; mullioned and transomed windows with quoined surrounds, relieving arches and pointed-arched lights, or cusped-headed lights to windows of most important elements; attic windows rising through eaves under gables with trefoils in apexes and cross-finials; chimneys quoined with multiple octagonal flues; water towers with lst-floor oriels, moulded surrounds and hoodmoulds to windows and pyramidal roofs with lucarnes and wrought-iron weather vanes. Main (west) elevation: central range: 3 bays: central 4-stage tower has angle buttresses rising into octagonal piers with crocketed spirelets; entrance with 2-storey oriel above; decorated band below belfry stage which has paired, louvred, 2 - light openings; arcaded parapet with central statue; pyramidal roof with zig-zag leading, lucarne band and wrought-iron finial with cross. Flanking ranges each have one wide, projecting, gabled bay; bay on left of tower has polygonal tower with lucarne to roof. Left wing (Saunderites) has 9-bay courtyard elevation with wide near-central, projecting gabled bay, 2 bay-windows to ground floor, and entrance at right end; west elevation, of 4 bays, has water tower on left and gabled right-hand bay with 2-storey, crenellated, canted bay window. Right wing has 9-bay courtyard elevation, the left bay with entrance and linking to former chapel which has gableted finials rising into crocketed spirelets, windows mostly of 3 lights with geometric tracery, cusped-traceried parapet, crested ridge tiles; 4-bay west elevation has 2-bay chapel end on left, 3-stage clock tower with paired, louvred belfry windows and pyramidal roof with clock faces in crocketed, gableted surrounds with spirelets, and right-hand bay of one-storey, being the end of the South African cloister, added 1901 as Boer War Memorial. South elevation: former chapel, on left, fronted by South African cloister of 10 bays with heavily-moulded entrances to end bays, wide 4-light windows, parapet and 2nd storey under hipped roof to bays 6 and 7. To right, set back, is gable end of Gownboys range, and then 11-bay range (Verites) which has a water tower at either end, entrance in bay 5, gabled projecting bay 7, and 2 bay-windows to ground floor. The Great Hall by Blomfield is a well-lit, 7-bay open hall flanked by single-storey ranges (each under several roofs) in perpendicular style. The east end of hall has tripled windows of 2, 4 and 2 lights, the gable of ashlar with angel corbel and blind tracery rising into stack; central ridge spire with louvred lucarnes at base, corona and delicate wrought-iron finial. Returns have close-set windows those of hall alternately rising through eaves under gables with roll-moulded coping and cross-finials. At west end of hall is earlier lower-roofed range (now library and museum) with long, flat-roofed dormers, and gabled ridge louvre. Interior: Great Hall has hammer-beam type roof with king posts and blocked 3-bay arcade (which formerly linked to library). 1872 block has panelling, and stone surrounds to some fireplaces. South African cloister has a number of memorials, including a fine Boer War memorial in bronze with angel holding fallen soldier and figures of St George and Joan of Arc in architrave. From cloister is throughway to quadrangle, the lobby having rusticated archway and walling with boys' names and dates (18th century and 19th century) brought from the former school in London. The school was brought down from London in 1872 by the then Headmaster,William Haig-Brown. M Seaborne and R Lowe, The English School, Its Architrecture and Organisation, Vol.II 1870-1970 (1977) V.C.H. Vol.III (1911), p26 Listing NGR: SU9637945043

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