ACKWORTH SCHOOL (THAT PART COMPRISING CENTRE BLOCK EAST AND WEST WINGS SHED COURT MAIN ENTRANCE)
List Entry Summary
This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.
Name: ACKWORTH SCHOOL (THAT PART COMPRISING CENTRE BLOCK EAST AND WEST WINGS SHED COURT MAIN ENTRANCE)
List entry Number: 1025067
Location
ACKWORTH SCHOOL (THAT PART COMPRISING CENTRE BLOCK EAST AND WEST WINGS SHED COURT MAIN ENTRANCE), PONTEFRACT ROAD
Grade: I
Date first listed: 06-Jun-1952 Details
ACKWORTH PONTEFRACT ROAD SE41NW (west side) Low Ackworth 2/19 Ackworth School (that part comprising: Centre Block, East and West Wings, Shed Court, Main Entrance). 6.6.1952 GV I
Foundling hospital, 1758 to 1773; Quaker residential school since 1778. By John Watson II (and/or Timothy Lee, Vicar of Ackworth: see History below); with additions 1786 and subsequently, and some alterations. Sandstone ashlar, with roofs of stone slate and some slate. Three principal blocks built in series to form the east (1758), north or centre (1759-62), and west (1763) sides of a wide green or forecourt, with linking colonnaded quadrants (1773). All of double-pile plan. Two storeys, in Palladian style, each principal element symmetrical and of 13 bays with a 3-bay pedimented centre breaking forwards slightly. The centre block, raised on a low terrace, and with a sunk basement, has bands on 2 levels, a raised central doorway approached by 6 steps splayed in descent, with flat parapets and drum terminals, the doorway with glazed and panelled double doors, a pedimented Ionic architrave and an inscription in the pediment:
“NON SIBI SED OMNIBUS”;
15-pane sashed windows flanking the door, otherwise tall 12-pane sashes at ground floor and
shorter 16-pane sashes at 1st floor; an oculus in the pediment; hipped roof, and 5 chimney stacks behind the ridge. The east and west ranges each have the former central pedimented doorway altered as a window, matching the 12-pane sashes on both floors; but the central windows to each side have architraves with cornices on consoles and the lst-floor window above the former door has scrolls on the sill and head; each has an oculus in the pediment; a hipped roof, and a turret clock behind the centre of the ridge with an octagonal cupola with a weather vane, that on the east range surmounted by a lamb with a sprig of thyme in its mouth (see History); and chimneys like those of the centre. Linking 8-bay quadrants, of 2 lower storeys, with Tuscan colonnades at ground floor, pilasters and 4-pane sashes above. The east facade of the east block matches its west facade except that the centre retains double doors (each of 3 fielded panels) with a 6-pane overlight; and in the left angle of the projected centre is a rainwater head with raised date “1758”. On this (east) side of this range is a narrow courtyard (“Shed Court”) enclosed on its east side by single-storey 14-bay colonnaded range (formerly open but now glazed) interrupted in the centre by a pedimented entrance archway with impost bands and keystone to the inner and outer entrances; hipped roof. Interior: the principal feature of interest is the reception room in the centre block (known as the Old Library), which matches the hall conventional in country houses of the period: it has pedimented architraves to the entrance doorways in the front and rear walls, the latter round- headed with fielded panel double doors and doorcase; 2 doorways at each end, all with moulded architraves and cornices and similarly panelled doors, those toward the front segmental-headed; on the chimney breast at each end, a moulded plaster eared architrave to a picture panel; modillioned cornice and plaster- panelled ceiling. History: built as a branch of the London Foundling Hospital established by Captain Coram in 1741 (the crest of which, said to be designed by Hogarth, surmounts the east range); east range designed by John Watson II (Linstrum West Yorkshire p. 244), centre by Timothy Lee (Foulds and Milligan, 1979); closed as Foundling Hospital 1773; purchased by Society of Friends in 1778 for £7,000, for use as boarding school, and opened 1779. References: Pevsner; Linstrum West Yorkshire Architects and Architecture (1978); E. V. Foulds and E. Milligan So Numerous a Family (Ackworth, 1979).
Selected Sources
Books and journals
Foulds, , Milligan, , So Numerous a Family, (1979)
Linstrum, D, West Yorkshire Architects and Architecture, (1978), 244
Pevsner, N, Radcliffe, E, The Buildings of England: Yorkshire: The West Riding, (1967)
National Grid Reference: SE 44091 17122
This copy shows the entry on 26-May-2016 at 11:36:36.
End of official listing
© Historic England 2016
The National Heritage List Text Entries contained in this material were obtained on [date]. The most publicly available up to date National Heritage List Text Entries can be obtained from https://www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/
