Sunday School, Gawthorpe, near Dewsbury, Yorkshire

OSSETT - On Saturday week the foundation-stone of a new Congregational School was laid at Gawthorpe, near Ossett. The building has been designed by Mr. Owen Edwards, of Manchester, in the Italian style. [Building News 3 October 1873 page 381]

DEWSBURY, NEW SCHOOL AT GAWTHORPE.—A new Sunday-school in connection with the Zion Independent Chapel, Gawthorpe, near Dewsbury, Yorkshire, has just been opened. The building, which is a neat and substantial structure in the Italian style of architecture (to harmonise with chapel), is erected of brick, faced externally with stock bricks, black jointed, and relieved with Halifax stone dressings. The principal gable faces the south, and is pierced with deeply-recessed entrance doors, and semi-circular windows each side, with stone label moulds, and neatly carved bosses, over these are three lofty Italian windows, filled with stained glass, to light the large hall; the side walls are divided into panels, both externally and internally, by means of brick pilasters, built hollow, and arranged to carry off the foul air from the classrooms, as well as to convey pure fresh air into the lecture hall. The classrooms and lecture hall are well lighted by windows arranged in couplets, between the pilasters in side walls. The plan is that of a simple parallelogram, and comprises on the ground floor five class- rooms 12ft. by 12ft. (two of these can be thrown together if necessary), an infants' classroom, with gallery and separate entrance door; corridors connect the classrooms with the boys' and girls' entrances, which are separate,' while two good staircases afford ready means of reaching the lecture hall on the first floor, which measures 50ft. by 34ft., is fitted up with a platform, and like the classrooms, corridors, &c, is surrounded with varnished pine dado 3ft. 3in. high, above which the walls are plastered and finished in imitation of ashlar work; the ceiling is waggon-headed, the roof timbers to height of collar being exposed to view, and are, like the rest of joiner's work, throughout stained and varnished. In the basement (the ceiling of which is fireproof on Fox & Barrett's principle) is provided the necessary accommodation for storage of coals, earthenware, boiler, &c, and a very efficient hot water apparatus arranged so that the whole of the classrooms, or lecture hall, can be heated separately or together if required, has been fitted up by Messrs. Henson & Co., of Pendleton. Separate yards are provided for boys, 1 girls, and infants, enclosing necessaries on "Morrell's dry earth system," and lavatories are fixed in convenient places adjacent to the different entrances. The committee were fortunate in purchasing a good-sized plot of ground, and have erected a house for their minister, the Rev. William Daniels; the house contains drawing room, study, kitchen, scullery, &c, on ground floor, which is cellared throughout, and three bedrooms are provided on first floor The whole of the buildings have been creditably carried out at a cost of little over £1,200, by local builders, from designs by Mr. Owen Edwards, architect, 134, Deansgate, Manchester, while Mr. John Law, of Batley, acted as clerk of works. [British Architect 29 January 1875 page 66].

Reference    British Architect 29 January 1875 page 66
Reference    Building News 3 October 1873 page 381