25852

 

II*  

Designated  

31/10/2001  

31/10/2001  

Ysgol Syr Thomas Jones  

 

Isle of Anglesey  

Amlwch  

 

Pentrefelin  

243746  

392096  

SW  

Set back, within private grounds, from the SW side of Ffordd Tanybryn in Pentrefelin.  

Education  

 

Anglesey had been developing plans for comprehensive education since as early as 1936: this purpose-built comprehensive school is the earliest example of Anglesey''s pioneering approach to secondary education in the post-war period, the first such school in Wales and probably in Britain. Begun in 1948, to designs of the county architect, N.Squire Johnson; the foundation stone was laid by the Secretary of State for Education, D R Hardyman; the school opened officially in 1950 and building work was completed in 1952. As an exceptionally early post-war school, the building was planned to a high specification for educational buildings not always sustained in its successors: it has for example, a generosity of spatial planning including separate gyms for boys and girls, a hall and separate canteen. It therefore represents a very clear expression of best-practice for post-war secondary educational building. The school has been little-changed since opening, though some schoolrooms were added to the rear of the school, and a modern theatre built in branch from staggered classroom blocks, in the late C20.  

Large-scale purpose-built comprehensive school, an ambitious and progressive essay in design for secondary education from the immediate post-war period. The school is ingeniously planned to follow the line of the hillside and take account of the sloping ground. A long asymmetrical range of 3 main parts, loosely centred on the main entrance and assembly hall block. There are staggered, long 3-storey, classroom blocks to the left of the entrance block, (with modern theatre block branching from the NE corner), and a 2-storey curving wing to R (housing dining hall and gymansia etc), from which the boys gym is advanced at a lower level to the far right. The music rooms form a rear range at the back of the hall, linked to the main classroom blocks by a modern single storey curving range built into the slope to the rear of the school. Frame construction (concrete or steel), expressed externally as a series of highly regular grids with white rendered bands articulating a grid of regular glazing (metal-framed windows throughout). This modernist white grid is visually relieved by the use of stone cladding in the lower storeys, end walls, and tower defining the entrance block. The main entrance is raised by a series of stone steps leading to the entrance in broad continous glazing framed within a coloured rendered wall. Single storey, stone clad administration blocks are advanced to either side of this, and the tower is offset to the right. This has slightly battered profile and shallow pitched gabled roof, reminiscent perhaps, of the engine houses of the nearby Parys Mountain. Smooth stone clock face in facing gable apex, and porthole windows in right hand return. The 3-storey classroom blocks are planned on the staircase principal (favoured in the immediate post-war period), with interconnecting classrooms between end and central stairwells. This plan is given clear external expression, as the staircases punctuate the regular lines of class-room fenestration as wider and continuous vertical glazed panels. Class-room fenestration forms continuous horizontal bands, with continuous canopy over the 1st floor windows echoing the overhanging eaves line, and simple railed balcony aboe the stepped-out stone-clad ground floor. The curving wing to the N of the entrance has a somewhat different architectural character, in which regularly spaced windows puntuate the smooth rendered, white walls. Full-height windows to ground floor (to canteen and gyms) and smaller windows in the storeyed part above. Rear elevations follow the same principals, though with slightly simpler architectural expression. The modern added classrooms and theatre blocks also have rendered elevations with regularly spaced casement windows; theatre block with flat roof and added classrooms to rear with mix of flat and gable roofs.  

A simple and coherent plan, in which the entrance hall separates the class-room blocks from the communal areas (hall, dining hall, library, gymnasia). The entrance hall is stepped down towards the rear, separated from the hall by a glazed screen. Corridors lead off to each side and (flanking the hall) to the rear. To the left are the main classroom blocks: 3 storeys, the ground floor with cloakrooms and toilets leading off the main corridor, 1st and 2nd floor with interconnected classrooms accessed via end and central staircases (enabling each class-room to have independent access). The corridor to the rear leads to the music rooms beyond the assembly hall (planned to be away from the quieter classroom blocks) and the modern craft and workshop rooms. To the right of the entrance steps lead down to the canteen and gyms, and up to offices and the library; accessed along a corridor illuminated by porthole windows in the ceiling.  

Listed grade II* as the first purpose-designed comprehensive school in Wales and one of the earliest (probably even the first) in Britain. Anglesey was a pioneer of comprehensive education in the post-war period, and this building gives remarkable architectural expression to these progressive ideas. It represents an excellent essay in architecture for education, designed in a spirit of post-war optimism. In its expressive but stream-lined planning and simple strong detail it demonstrates the importance of design for education in the formulation of a modernist architecture in this period.