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Lilian Baylis School Lollard Street South Side, Lambeth Walk Estate, London
SE11 Lilian Baylis School, originally known as the Beaufoy, is a comprehensive school built to replace four older secondary schools in the area, among them, the former Beaufoy School founded by Henry Hanbury Beaufoy in 1851 and rebuilt in 1909 as an early Junior Technical School. Lilian Baylis (1874-1937) was the Manager of the Old Vic & Co and founder of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet Company. She resided for most of her life at 27 Stockwell Park Road, London, SE11. The school is set in the heart of the Lambeth Walk Estate, built in the 1960s and consisting of a mixture of low rise and single level dwellings with local shops provided. In style, Lilian Baylis School resembles closely the idiom of concrete and dark brick being used by 1960 by Lyons Israel Ellis for a series of well known schools, among them, the listed boys’ and girls’ schools at Oldbury Wells, Bridgenorth (1957-1960) and Up Holland School (1959-1960). Here, the dark brick exposes the concrete floor plates and beam-ends, all topped with flat roofs. However, it is the plan of Lilian Baylis School that makes it so special. Whereas the Lyons Israel Ellis Schools, like the earlier LCC Schools, place all their accommodation in one main block, Lilian Baylis School utilises a series of low, two- and three- level storied linked buildings to form a series of asymmetrical courtyards, with the principal circulation consisting of glazed galleries at first-floor level. Unlike the earlier practice, established by the Ministry of Education’s St Crispin’s School, Wokingham (1951-1953), each element is given equal weight, making for a consistent height of the two or three storeys. The School complex comprises a first-floor hall over music rooms and offices; the main classrooms are located in the three-storey range to the south. There are science and art blocks with two former house blocks, one now a canteen and kitchen, and the other of mixed community use. The classroom blocks have glazed ends, the windows of contrasting brown timber opening lights and white painted mullions. The school hall is a square made octagonal space by means of a gallery all the way round, equipped with facilities for film and theatre, and reached via an open stairwell from the entrance hall below. Lilian Baylis School will soon be moving to new premises and the fate of the present set of buildings is unknown. Nigel Fowler Sutton
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