Monument record 638/7/3 - Daventry Town Library (formerly Daventry Grammar School)

Daventry Grammar School was founded in 1576, the original school building of 1600 is now a private house. Daventry Town Library was built in 1938 and was the main hall of the Grammar school. When the school re-located in the 1960s the hall was adapted for use as the town library and social services made use for the caretaker’s house and spare offices. A new porch was added to the library. The buildings are arranged around a small courtyard. They are constructed of red brick and have tiled gable roofs. There are few surviving original interior fixtures and fittings. Now demolished.

{1} Free Grammar School, Litchfield Street (New Street) and North Street. The school was taken over by Northamptonshire County Council in 1913. New building added in 1921 to accommodate 150 pupils. This building is located in North Street and has a distinctive school architecture, although it has lost parts of its plan form. The building is now used as offices. Film 3 Photo 9,10.

{3} Baron Crewe, Bishop of Durham, was one of the 17th century benefactors of Daventry Grammar School, which was founded in1576 by William Parker, a Daventry man, who became a wealthy London merchant. The original school building of 1600, now a private house, is in New Street. The school buildings under consideration were built on the North Street site in 1938 by local builders, Bosworth and Wakefield; the architect is unknown. Following the relocation of the grammar school in the 1960s, the main hall was adapted for use as the town library, and social services utilised the spare offices and the caretaker's house. A new entrance porch was added to accommodate the library use.

The buildings are arranged around a small courtyard in a complex which includes a two-storey Caretaker’s house at the north-east gateway. The school buildings are constructed with red brick and have tiled, gable roofs, brick piers to the walls and casement windows. The north elevation has extensive bands of fenestration at the first floor to allow maximum light into the art rooms. The roof structure of the main hall (now the Daventry Town Library) comprises metal or timber ribs resting on moulded stone corbels and the hall has a moulded cornice. The limited information on the interior of the building suggests that it has a functional form with few surviving interior fixtures and fittings. The site also retains some of the playgrounds bordered on the East side by an old brick wall.

* Architectural Interest: the school buildings are utilitarian in construction and designed in a typical neo-Georgian idiom, devoid of architectural embellishment:
* Rarity: although this may be the only 1930s school complex left in Daventry, many school buildings of this date survive nationally and thus this is not a rare building type;
* Interior: the main hall has a pleasing roof structure, but this is not innovative or unusual and does not confer special interest. The former school has a functional plan-form and there are few interior fixtures and fittings which appear to survive

<1> Ballinger J., 1999, Northamptonshire Extensive Urban Survey: Industrial Period, (unchecked) (Digital archive). SNN4.

<2> Bailey, B, Pevsner, N, and Cherry, B, 2013, The Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, p. 216 (Book). SNN111989.

<3> English Heritage, Designation Advice Report, Desingation Adviser, April 2012 [UDS Non-Designation case] (Report). SNN113190.

Record last edited

Aug 16 2022 10:02AM