Building record MDR10457 - Community Centre, Chaddesden Lane, Chaddesden, Derby

Former Victorian village school, single storey with projecting gable at front and bracketed eaves. Slate covered roof and mix of timber and cast iron windows. Six courses of alternating blue and red engineering bricks and a blue brick string course underneath the windows. Little altered. The school was later used as a Methodist chapel and finally a community centre. This is the only Victorian school building in Chaddesden. (1) According to Bulmer in 1895, the National School, Chaddesden was a neat building of brick, erected in 1872, to accommodate 160 children. (2) According to Kelly in 1912, the Public Elementary (mixed and infants) School in Chaddesden was errected in 1872 and enlarged in 1889, for 160 children. (3) Craven mentions the first school in the parish was founded in 1705; it was refounded by Robert Wilmot in1736-7, but in the present century was demolished. A later school opposite Church Lane was also gone by 1958. However, there is no evidence as to where this building was, the school on the existing site was extant in the late 1800s. (4)(5)