Central National School (in 2018 Carluccio’s Restaurant)
Foundation
The Church of England had established the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church in 1811 and their schools were known as ‘National Schools’. The Central National School in Church Street was one of nine National Schools founded in Brighton by Henry Michell Wagner, vicar of Brighton between 1824 and 1870. Built in 1829 and opened the following year, it was a junior school for boys and girls, with an associated infants department in nearby Upper Gardner Street. According to Swayland & Gill’s Directory for Brighton 1832, 400 boys and 230 girls were receiving education at the school at that time.
Building Style
The imposing, three-storey building stood in Church Street, between Jubilee Street and Regent Street, and facing New Road. It was designed by Stroud and Mew in a Regency Gothic style, with oriel windows and pinnacles. The interior was described in History of Brighthelmston: Or, Brighton as I View it and Others Knew It (1862) by John Ackerson Erredge:
“Entering by the grand door of the vestibule, three tiers of balconies present themselves, having staircases leading to them and conducting to the several suites of rooms. The hall, 50ft. high, is terminated by a groined roof. The Boys’ School is approached by an elegant flight of stone steps, the room is 75ft long, 35ft wide, and 20ft high, well lighted from the west, and has also an entrance in Regent Street. The Girls’ School-room, which is of similar dimensions to the Boys’, and immediately above it, is approached by two additional flights of stone stairs.”
Further details of the lithograph below, (1831) drawn and printed by H Mew, are available on the Regency Society Brighton Prints Website
The School
The school remained open in various guises for 137 years – as the Central National School, the Central Church of England School, and finally the Central Voluntary Primary School. During World War II, the roof of the infants school in Upper Gardner Street was requisitioned by local fire-watchers and the infants department joined the juniors in Church Street.
James Gray captions: (top to bottom, left to right)
This photograph is of the Central School building in Church Street. Period not known, but probably also of the 1960s. jgc_25_087
Photographs of this old school, the second oldest in Brighton, only Middle Street (1805) being older. Central was built in 1829 and opened in the following year. Built in Regency Gothic style it remained in continuous use for 137 years until 1967. For a short while afterwards it was used as an overflow for other schools. Finally it was demolished for street widening early in 1971. Date of photograph: 9 February 1964. jgc_25_079
This photograph taken in January 1965, looks north. Most of the buildings are already demolished but the Central School (extreme right) still stands. jgc_25_108
View up Church Street taken on 19 March 1967. jgc_25_080
James Gray images from the 1960s:
James Gray images all taken before and during the destruction in 1971:
Dilapidation and destruction
In March 1967, the Church Street building finally closed and was allowed to deteriorate until Brighton Council shamefully demolished it for road widening in 1971. Shameful because a Government preservation order for the building was delayed by a postal strike and arrived too late to save it. Only a pair of brown wooden doors, an iron gate post and an iron fire fender have been preserved in Brighton Museum, in 2018 all in storage.
James Gray captions:
This photograph shows the Central School, in Church Street, in its last dilapidated days shortly before its demolition in 1971. jgc_25_085
Four photographs, taken at various times, during the destruction – one can use no other word – of this old Regency Gothic style building, early in 1971. jgc_25_088 to 091.
[Colour picture] View of the north end of this road showing the Central National School in 1971, the year in which it was demolished. jgc_25_051
Aftermath
In 1972, the neighbouring two buildings (also with oriel windows) on the corner of Church Street and Jubilee Street were also demolished. These smaller buildings (107-108) had shops on the ground floor and the schoolmaster’s residence on the second. Demolition in Jubilee Street itself had started in the 1950s and continued slowly into the 1970s. The site remained derelict for over 30 years, used as a ‘temporary’ car park whilst various regeneration schemes came and went.
James Gray images taken after the demolition
James Gray captions:
After the unforgivable destruction of the Central School in 1971, the barren remains. Just hoardings and not the widened roadway which had been predicted. jgc_25_109
A few yards to the east, the cleared site of Jubilee Street, looking towards North Road, with the backs of buildings in Regent Street to the left. Apart from the car park what has Brighton gained from all these demolitions? The long awaited redevelopment, when it comes, may provide some reward. jgc_25_110
Early twenty-first century
The Jubilee Library was finally opened in 2005 and Jubilee Street was redeveloped with a new civic square, hotel, restaurants, offices and shops. A branch of Carluccio’s, the Italian restaurant chain, now occupies the block between Jubilee Street and Regent Street where the Central National School and nos. 107-108 Church Street once stood. The streetscape of New Road also changed dramatically when, in 2007, it became one of the country’s first shared space schemes, open to one-way traffic but now dominated by pedestrians and a favourite spot for street performers.
2018 images
(photographer: Chris Nichols)
Text by Lyn Turpin