School Gallery

Perronet Thompson School JLP01_10_36844

Perronet Thompson School, Wawne Road, Bransholme, City of Kingston upon Hull. A view of Perronet Thompson School from the north west.
Laing's Yorkshire Region division began work on site in September 1986 and the building was completed in June 1988. Bransholme was one of the largest local authority housing estates in Britain at the time and the school was equipped with enhanced facilities for the use of the whole community. These included the larger lending library, the Bransholme Theatre, meetings rooms, a gymnasium and courtyard tearooms. The school was named for the Kingston upon Hull born parliamentarian Thomas Perronet Thompson (1783-1869), a governor of Sierra Leone and activist against the Corn Laws. It closed in 1999 and reopened as Kingswood College of Arts but was demolished in 2011 and replaced on the same site by a new building, the Kingswood Academy. This view shows three of the six year-block modules built in pairs along the 18m high barrel vaulted spine. The clear polycarbonate barrel vault was four times longer than any other in the UK and spanned 11m

© Historic England Archive

Placing beams JLP01_08_053320

COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL, GEDLING ROAD, ARNOLD, GEDLING, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE. Two workers guiding a Laingspan beam, lowered from a crane, into position on the roof of one of the blocks at Arnold County High School, during its construction.
Work began on the site in March 1958 and construction was completed for the new school term in September 1959. Laingspan was a flexible modular system of frame construction using precast pre-stressed concrete units. Laing developed the system in conjunction with the Architects and Buildings Branch of the Ministry of Education and consulting engineer A J Harris. The Arnold school was the first building for which the system was used beyond a prototype extension to Laing's own Research and Development Centre. Designed to economise on steel consumption and minimise on wet trades to speed up construction, the system went on to be used for other building types including offices and hospitals

© Historic England Archive

Checking floor level JLP01_08_053125a

COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL, GEDLING ROAD, ARNOLD, GEDLING, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE. A worker using a spirit level to precisely lay a concrete footing slab for a Laingspan wall during the construction of Arnold County High School.
Work began on the site in March 1958 and construction was completed for the new school term in September 1959. Laingspan was a flexible modular system of frame construction using precast pre-stressed concrete units. Laing developed the system in conjunction with the Architects and Buildings Branch of the Ministry of Education and consulting engineer A J Harris. The Arnold school was the first building for which the system was used beyond a prototype extension to Laing's own Research and Development Centre. Designed to economise on steel consumption and minimise on wet trades to speed up construction, the system went on to be used for other building types including offices and hospitals

© Historic England Archive