High School for Girls, Huddersfield Road, Barnsley (Architectural Competition)

BARNSLEY HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS was founded in 1905, initially housed in temporary buildings in Queen's Road.  Work began immediately to provide a purpose-built school for 400 pupils.  Having purchased a suitable site on the Huddersfield Road, the School Governors then organised a competition for the design of the new buildings. Entries were received in November 1906, the assessor, E R Robson (architect to the London School Board,) subsequently awarding the first premium to Buckland, Harwood-Farmer and Ashford, architects, of Birmingham. Among the unsuccessful entries were two received from Manchester architects – G H Willoughby, and jointly by Edgar Wood and John Henry Sellers.

The following year plans and elevations of thirteen of the entries were illustrated in an occasional periodical, “British Competitions in Architecture,” including those submitted by Wood and Sellers. Direct comparison is therefore possible, not only with the work of other entrants in the competition, but with the later designs for Durnford Street Schools in Middleton (1908-1910) by the same architects.

Possibly, the Barnsley High School design was the more radical, particularly their proposed north or terrace front shows an elevation completely devoid of decoration or explicit historical detail. It is also clear that many elements found in this competition entry prepared in the autumn of 1906 re-appeared in slightly modified form in the later designs for the Middleton schools. Given its date, it rather spoils the theory that the Middleton schools were the culmination of the Wood/Sellars partnership. Rather, they appear to be a re-working of this earlier competition entry on a reduced scale.

Reference           Koch: British Competitions in Architecture. Volume 1 1905-1907 Part 11 page 20 (pdf381)