Building record 7198/54 - Henry Gotch Primary School

The former Henry Gotch Schools were built in 1939 as the Henry Gotch Infant School and Nursery, and the Henry Gotch Junior School in commemoration of former local businessman Henry Gale Gotch. The schools were built to the open-air templates which allowed for south facing aspects and verandahs for open-air teaching. The schools were built as a symmetrical pair, constructed of brick with a tiled roof covering. Each building was built around a central quadrangle with four classrooms to each long side, an assembly hall at one end and offices, cloakrooms and service rooms to the other. A cartaker's house was a later addition, and has not survived. The plan form remains broadly intact and some original features survive.

{1} The schools, formerly known as the Henry Gotch Infant School and Nursery, and the Henry Gotch Junior School, were closed in 2009 to allow for the development of a science-based academy on the site. The former Henry Gotch Schools were built in 1939 in commemoration of former local businessman Henry Gale Gotch (1848-1939) of Kettering, not to be confused with his younger brother, the architect John Alfred Gotch (1852-1942). The school was built to the open-air template which allowed for south facing aspects and verandahs for open-air teaching. This is said to be the only school which demonstrates this type of functional architecture in the area.

The schools were built as a symmetrical pair facing onto Windmill Avenue, with the Infant and Nursery School to one side of the main grounds and the Junior School to the other. These have since been linked by a corridor, c.2007-8 and there are a number of further modern additions to the buildings. However, from the photographic evidence provided, it appears that some of the original features survive and that the plan-form remains broadly intact, although somewhat obscured by modern buildings. Each building was constructed around a central quadrangle with four classrooms to each long side, accessed by a long corridor, and an assembly hall to one end and offices and service rooms, cloakrooms and toilet facilities to the other. A separate building to the east of the complex, perhaps a dining hall, is no longer extant. It is claimed that the interior of the classrooms and corridors has been retained. The quadrangles however, have been altered. The main entrance to the schools was initially via a pedestrian subway which ran under Windmill Avenue. Although the subway survives it no longer accesses the site, the main entrance being off Deeble Road. It is claimed that this ‘school-dedicated pedestrian subway’ is a unique feature. A caretaker’s house, which was positioned equidistant between the two blocks, in-line with the front entrance, was a later addition, and has not survived. Although Pevsner mentions the senior school, he makes no mention of the adjacent lower schools (The Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, 1973). The buildings are not in a conservation area.

An article on the Henry Gotch Schools in a 1946 edition of the Housewife magazine entitled ‘A Model School in the Country’, shows children working and playing out of doors in the open air, and suggests that ‘some progressive and far-sighted communities have succeeded to a remarkable extent in providing excellent modern school buildings… This school is of the one-storey type, built in such a way as to catch the maximum of sun, and all classes can move out into the open whenever the weather permits.’ By this time however, it was reported that the school had classes of up to 48 children, the school accommodating 760 children in total, including 40 under-fives.

The Henry Gotch Schools are not attributed to a particular architect of national renown. The design and architectural quality of the buildings are modest, and when considered in the context of the interwar period, the building seems old-fashioned and unremarkable. Schools of this particular style and type survive in great numbers. Although experimentation with plan-form and design in a way that would promote health in schools continued through to the post-war years, such ideas had been developed and implemented by George Widdows in a more ground-breaking and significant way, some 10 years earlier, in the work that he did for Derbyshire County Council.

<1> English Heritage, Designation Advice Report, UDS Non-Designation case; Designation Adviser, 23rd June 2001 (Report). SNN113190.

Record last edited

Feb 17 2025 6:14PM