Kennington Boys’ School (Cormont Road School), Lambeth, London Grade II, Architect: T J Bailey, 1897-8
Photo credit: Connor McNeill
A Victorian building requisitioned during WWI as a hospital in the capital is on The Victorian Society’s Top Ten Endangered Buildings list 2024 that has been launched by Griff Rhys Jones, the Society’s President. The building needs urgent restoration and a sympathetic reuse to preserve this important historic structure.
Griff Rhys Jones, Victorian Society President, said:
‘This is one of those dilemmas that just seems confusing. How come this building can’t be reused? Recycled? Why can’t it be sold? This is a central borough? Loads of distinguished old places have been successfully repurposed for homes or commercial use. To allow this noble structure to simply decay by neglect is surely wasteful bad policy.’
Requisitioned as part of the 1st London General Hospital during WWI, this fine Board School was the first posting of writer and campaigner Vera Brittain when she served as a VAD nurse (Voluntary Aid Detatchment). Edward, her brother, was also invalided to the hospital during the Battle of the Somme whilst the Testament of Youth author was nursing there. The Cormont Road School, Myatt’s Fields Park (opposite) and the neighbouring college became a hub for the medical treatment and rehabilitation of wounded men. In Greater London alone there were over 300 hospitals and convalescent homes. Brittain described the school as “one of the few distinguished buildings in the dismal, dreary, dirty wilderness of south London.”
Vera Brittain photographed outside the 1st London General Hospital during WWI. The writer and campaigner served as a VAD. © Photograph of Vera Brittain reproduced by permission of The William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Library & the Vera Brittain Estate.
Brittain was one of the many nurses who cared for the wounded and dying at the hospital. It was her first nursing position before being posted to Malta and then going to France. It was while at the 1st General Hospital that her fiancé, poet, Roland Leighton, was killed. Her poem A Military Hospital A Military Hospital was written whilst at the 1st London General.
Post-war the building returned to schooling thousands of south Londoners, as it did for over 100 years, and is a key feature of the Minet Conservation Area. Sometime after World War II the School became Kennington Boys’ School and later the Charles Edward Brooke Girls’ School, before becoming vacant following the relocation of the Girls’ School to new nearby premises in 2012.
Kennington School (Cormont Road School) has been on the Historic England at Risk Register since 2016 when its condition was recorded as poor. By the time of the recently released 2023 Historic England Heritage at Risk Register, its condition had deteriorated to Very Bad, demonstrating that its owner, the London Borough of Lambeth, has not undertaken necessary ongoing maintenance. A survey commissioned by the council, in March 2016, identified that water ingress has caused significant internal damage. Works to make the building wind and weathertight have been identified as urgently required since 2016. Some remedial work was supposed to have commenced in 2023, but no action has been taken. It is now critical that work is done urgently to stop further deterioration and identify a new use for the building before the structure deteriorates any further. Its central London location offers opportunities for reuse that don’t apply to many buildings. A sympathetic reuse for it could surely be found. Local people are seriously concerned about a building that has been a prominent feature of their lives and their locality, but which has been draped with green netting for years. A petition has been launched appealing to the Council to repair the building and put it to an appropriate new use.
Photo shows Edward Brittain, Vera’s brother who was nursed at the school during the Battle of the Somme, and Roland Leighton, Vera’s finance who was killed in France, and their friend Victor Richardson. Photo reproduced by permission of The William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Library & the Vera Brittain Estate
James Hughes, Director of the Victorian Society, said:
‘London has a rich heritage of Victorian and Edwardian schools, and this example by the prolific T. J. Bailey is especially splendid. Aptly described as a building of “romance and fantasy”, its sweeping spirelets, towers, dormers and Dutch gables combine to entertaining, kaleidoscopic effect. This is a building of enormous historic and architectural significance, and is a landmark in the Minet Conservation Area in a pleasant and desirable part of London, within striking distance of the centre of town. It is one, too, of enormous potential for reuse, which the Local Authority must make an absolute priority.
The full Top Ten list can be read here and includes a requisitioned school where author Vera Brittain nursed during WWI, the last of one of the world’s first purpose-built amusement parks, a banqueting hall for the workers, one of the first tennis pavilions in the world, and a building where the first £1m cheque was signed. The listed buildings include a Scheduled Monument and two Grade II*- listed buildings.
The list is based on public nominations from across England and Wales, and the buildings selected represent industrial, religious, domestic, and civic architecture from across the nation with unique historical and community significance and value. Nominated buildings must be dated between 1837 and 1914. The Victorian Society has announced its list of Top Ten of Endangered buildings fourteen times.