Norwich School

Major expansion of a city-centre school

Location
East
Client
Trustees of Norwich School

Purcell conducted a major reconstruction programme to remodel the entire interior and extend the school to provide additional classrooms.

Norwich School is a co-educational, independent day school for pupils aged four to eighteen. Set on the water meadows below the Cathedral Close, the lower school was devastated by fire in 1999.

A new multipurpose sports hall was created with four badminton courts, a two-lane cricket gallery, a multi-gym, changing rooms, office accommodation and storage facilities. Disabled access was provided throughout the building. The new steel frame and brick building was constructed on the site of the former Greyfriars Abbey, which involved a full archaeological excavation before works. A new cricket pavilion adjacent to the Lower School also required protracted negotiations with the Local Authority, who were initially opposed to any building on the site.

Throughout the work, the school continued to function in temporary buildings in the playground adjacent to the site, necessitating as little disruption as possible.

Lower School Cricket Hall

Location: Norwich
Client: Trustees of Norwich School