Name |
Image |
Location |
Date |
Grade |
Notes |
Refs |
Middle Street School (†) |
— | The Lanes 50.8226°N 0.1428°W / 50.8226; -0.1428 (Site of former Middle Street Schools) |
1809 |
— |
The Union Charity School was founded by Edward Goff in 1807. It was for boys only, but a girls' school was added in 1809. They later took the names Royal Union School and Middle Street School. Goff gave £400 and £200 respectively for the two schools, but other financial support came from the public. Although the schools were non-denominational, Sunday attendance at a Congregational chapel was required. The school board took over the running of the schools in 1874, and the buildings survived for just under a century from that time: the present Middle Street Primary School replaced the old school in February 1973 on a slightly different site. |
[3][9] |
Puget's Schools (†) |
— |
The Lanes 50.8222°N 0.1400°W / 50.8222; -0.1400 (Site of former Puget's School) |
1861 |
— |
These schools were in Clarence Yard behind North Street. They were taken over by the school board in 1870. No trace remains of the buildings or the street on which they stood. |
[3] |
Fairlight Place Board School |
|
Elm Grove 50.8349°N 0.1252°W / 50.8349; -0.1252 (Fairlight Place Board School) |
1870 |
— |
Fairlight Place itself was built up at the same time as the school. Thomas Simpson's building was remodelled in 1931 and is still in use with the name Fairlight Primary and Nursery School. |
[3][10] |
York Place Elementary Schools |
|
North Laine 50.8286°N 0.1361°W / 50.8286; -0.1361 (York Place School) |
1870 |
— |
Simpson's buildings were extended in 1884 when girls' and boys' secondary school buildings were added. These were named York Place Secondary School from 1898 and moved out in 1926 and 1931 respectively to the new Varndean School campus (built by Gilbert Murray Simpson). The 1870 buildings then took the names Fawcett School for Boys and Margaret Hardy School for Girls, and when these transferred to new premises in Patcham in the 1960s Brighton Technical College (now City College Brighton & Hove) acquired them. The stone-banded red brickwork is in Simpson & Sons' "typical Brighton Board School manner". |
[3][4] [11][12] |
Hanover Terrace Board School |
— |
Hanover 50.8308°N 0.1285°W / 50.8308; -0.1285 (Site of former Hanover Terrace Board School) |
1873 |
— |
Thomas Simpson built this school on a narrow site between Hanover Terrace, which had been developed in the early 1830s, and Coleman Street. It became a boys-only school in 1928, and the infants department shut four years later. After World War II it became Brighton Secondary Technical School. By 1990 it was an annexe of the Brighton College of Technology, but in 1999 planning permission was granted for its demolition and replacement with houses. |
[3][10] [13][14] |
Richmond Street Board School |
— |
Carlton Hill 50.8264°N 0.1327°W / 50.8264; -0.1327 (Site of former Richmond Street Board School) |
1873 |
— |
This was the first Brighton school to offer meals to pupils. It was one part of the Richmond Street/Sussex Street schools complex which ran along Claremont Row between the two streets. The buildings were compulsorily purchased in 1959 and demolished as part of the Carlton Hill redevelopment scheme. |
[3][15] [16] |
Sussex Street Board School |
— |
Carlton Hill 50.8257°N 0.1330°W / 50.8257; -0.1330 (Site of former Sussex Street Board School) |
1874 |
— |
Built to Thomas Simpson's design a year after the neighbouring Richmond Street school, it was treated as part of the same complex: the two parts were for girls and boys respectively, and playgrounds separated them. A nursery school was added, but the site of the school has disappeared under postwar housing development. |
[3][15] [16] |
Freshfield Place Board School |
|
Queen's Park 50.8228°N 0.1263°W / 50.8228; -0.1263 (Freshfield Place Board School) |
1880 |
— |
The school continues in use as Queen's Park Primary School and has about 400 pupils between the ages of 3 and 11. |
[3][17] |
Preston Road Board School |
|
Preston Park 50.8355°N 0.1423°W / 50.8355; -0.1423 (Preston Road Board School) |
1880 |
— |
Simpson built this "excellent" school on a site between the London Road viaduct and the bottom of Preston Park. It continued in use as a junior school until 1937; it later served secondary-age pupils as the Preston Technical Institute and subsequently became the Preston Road Campus of City College Brighton & Hove, specialising in the teaching of plumbing. In October 2016 it was sold for residential conversion. The building's "flamboyant" architectural features include gables with pediments, steep roofs and prominent chimney-stacks. |
[3][18] [19][20] [21] |
Finsbury Road Board School |
|
Hanover 50.8281°N 0.1269°W / 50.8281; -0.1269 (Finsbury Road Board School) |
1881 |
II |
The school was bought by Brighton Polytechnic in 1956. Listed in 1999 in response to threatened demolition, it was converted in 2003 to flats called Hanover Lofts. The former junior school section rises to two storeys and is flanked by higher projecting cross-wings. The infants section has one cross-wing and is lower but wider, with an 11-window range. The Arts and Crafts-style building is of brown brick with red-brick and concrete dressings, a slate roof (topped with a cupola) and terracotta decoration. |
[3][7] [4][22] [23] |
Circus Street School (demolished) |
|
Carlton Hill 50.8247°N 0.1348°W / 50.8247; -0.1348 (Circus Street School) |
1883 |
— |
The Board took over an existing school on this street in 1870, but Thomas Simpson's yellow-brick building replaced it in 1883. It closed in 1926: the pupils transferred to Richmond Street and Sussex Street, and the building was sold to Brighton Polytechnic. The Circus Street Annexe, as it was later known, was refurbished in 2010. In the early 21st century major redevelopment was proposed for the Circus Street area; in 2005 the council stated that "the Annexe has some architectural and historic merit but its retention will not be a requirement of any redevelopment scheme", and a plan which involved demolition was unveiled in 2012. The building was demolished in summer 2017. |
[3][15] [16][24] [25][26] |
Connaught Road School |
|
Hove 50.8295°N 0.1769°W / 50.8295; -0.1769 (Connaught Road School) |
1884 |
II |
Simpson's plans for this school were dated July 1882, but John T. Chappell built it in 1884. It was used as a primary school for exactly a century, after which it became an adult education centre. Representing an "elegant", "distinctive" and early use of the Queen Anne style, it is a yellow- and red-brick building with curved gables and terracotta-coloured render. Extensions were added in 1893 and 1903—designed by Simpson—and in 1900, to the design of Clayton & Black. |
[4][27] [28] |
Ditchling Road Board School |
|
Round Hill 50.8392°N 0.1343°W / 50.8392; -0.1343 (Ditchling Road Board School) |
1890 |
II |
Like the Finsbury Road school, this brown-brick building has separate wings for infants and juniors, of one and two storeys respectively. Four prominent gable ends face Rugby Road, each with pediments and brick louvres. There is rich terracotta and brick decoration. The school is still in use as the Downs Junior School. |
[3][29] |
Elm Grove School |
|
Elm Grove 50.8318°N 0.1232°W / 50.8318; -0.1232 (Elm Grove School) |
1893 |
— |
The road dates from 1852, and the densely populated residential area to which it gave its name developed between 1860 and 1880. Children transferred to the new school from an older school on Bentham Road. Now known as Elm Grove Primary School, it caters for more than 400 pupils between 4 and 11. It is in the "typical earlier Board School style" of Thomas Simpson. |
[3][4] [30][31] [32] |
Stanford Road Board School |
|
Prestonville 50.8358°N 0.1475°W / 50.8358; -0.1475 (Stanford Road Board School) |
1893 |
II |
Now a primary school serving the Prestonville suburb, the complex four-part building "retains its original plan and detailed features" inside and has many distinctive features on the exterior: a three-storey clock tower, decorative mouldings and pediments, a gabled timber belfry, gables in various shapes, pilasters and balustrades. Brown and red brick, stone, tile and render are the main materials. |
[2][3] |
St Luke's Board School |
|
Queen's Park 50.8271°N 0.1214°W / 50.8271; -0.1214 (St Luke's Board School) |
1903 |
II |
"The most prominent building" in the Queen's Park area is the final school the Simpsons designed together. The "variety of materials and ornamental devices" in the Arts and Crafts-style composition include red and brown brickwork, terracotta, stone dressings, tiles, wood and lead; and aediculae, stair turrets, arched windows with moulded swags in their spandrels, large and small gables, bell-cots and the Brighton Borough coat of arms. The school remains in use. |
[3][4] [5][33] |