Burnham Copse Infant School

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Burnham Copse Infant School
Burnham Copse Infants School, Tadley - geograph.org.uk - 133385.jpg
The school buildings (pictured in 2006)
Burnham Copse Infant School
General information
StatusDemolished
TypeSchool
AddressNewchurch Road
Town or city Tadley, Hampshire
CountryUnited Kingdom
Coordinates 51°21′21″N1°09′01″W / 51.3558°N 1.1504°W / 51.3558; -1.1504
Completed1985
Demolished2010
Design and construction
Architect(s)
Architecture firm Hampshire County Architects Department
Main contractorW. M. Annette

Burnham Copse Infant School was a school in Tadley, Hampshire, UK. It was known for its unique architecture for a school, which was designed by a team led by Colin Stansfield Smith. It was commended by Architectural Design , and described by the Twentieth Century Society as "electic, witty, and imaginitive" and by Marcus Binney as having "adventurous form and silhouette".

Contents

The school opened in 1985. It merged with the adjacent junior school in 2006, and the site was demolished in 2010.

History

The first school, Burnham Copse County Infant School, existed from 1954–1959 and served employees of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE), north of Tadley, Hampshire. [1] [2] The school was on the AWRE site at the former Burnham's Copse, [3] across the Hampshire border in Berkshire. [1] [2] This was described as a "temporary postwar location", and was replaced by school buildings in Tadley. [2] Land was acquired near the existing junior school on Newchurch Road – described as a "badly run-down area" [4] – to build a permanent infant school, replacing what was described by the council in 1973 as "temporary buildings". [5]

Design

The design brief was for a 245-capacity school with seven classes, with the ability to expand to 315 pupils with a further two classrooms. [4]

The school buildings were designed by Ian Templeton and Ian Lower of Hampshire County Architects Department, under the supervision of Colin Stansfield Smith. [6] The conical roof designs were inspired by circus tents and tipis. [7] They had timber frames; other materials included Eternit asbestos slate, glass, and herringbone tiles, with globe finials. [4] [7] [8] The rationale for having a centralised main shared area, off which are the classrooms with their own outdoors access, may have been inspired by post-war schools such as Templewood Primary School. [9]

The project was tendered in March 1983. [10] The contractor for the construction was W. M. Annette of Basingstoke, and the quantity surveyor was Langdon & Every. [4] Building costs were £415.62 per square metre (£38.61 per sq ft). [10]

Architecture

The classroom building (pictured in 2006) BurnhamInfantSchool.jpg
The classroom building (pictured in 2006)

The school consisted of two main buildings. The larger building, [a]  approximately 28 metres (92 ft) diameter, had a decagonal roof and had classrooms surrounding a central shared area. [4] [11] The classrooms were separated from adjacent classrooms by walls, though they were open plan in their connection to the central area. This has been described as "informal and uninhibiting to small children". [9] Each classroom had its own partly enclosed outside teaching area. [11] The central shared area of the larger building was open up to its apex. [9]

The smaller building [b] – 22 metres (72 ft) in diameter and with an octagonal roof – housed the school hall and administration offices. [4] [11] Unlike the teaching building, the hall had internally exposed purlins and rafters and was top-lit. [4] [9] [7] The internal structure was painted in rich colours to provide a "stimulating environment" for the pupils. [12]

The main hall was situated half a storey below the classrooms. Weston described these different levels as "deterministic" of the buildings' use but felt that "the richness of the architecture [was] expected to compensate" for the restrictions. [11] He said that the difference in levels would not be compatible with modern accessibility regulations. [c] [11]

Reception

The buildings were opened in 1985 in a ceremony performed by former pupil Kathy Smallwood. [13] [14] Colloquially, the school became known as the "tipi", "circus tent", "magic roundabout", "roundhouse", "oast house", "chapter house", and "wigwam". [15] [16] [17]

Richard Weston celebrated Stansfield Smith's architecture for Hampshire County Council schools, describing Burnham Copse Infants as a "climax" of Stansfield Smith's "big roof" style. [11] He suggested that Henry Morris would have approved of the design as the buildings would be "fit to stand 'side by side with the parish church' as a symbolic centre for the community it serves". [8] The Twentieth Century Society described the school as being part of a series of "electic, witty, and imaginitive" public buildings, [8] and described its design as having "evocative and place-making form". [15] Architectural Design gave the school its 1984 commendation. [4] In The Buildings Around Us (1995), architect Thom Gorst described the conical roofs as "not unassuming" and their design was deliberate to "give some character to the low-key surroundings". He characterised the buildings as "completely unlike old Victorian Board school[s]". [9]

A 1989 ERIC seminar said that the new buildings at Burnham Copse "provide a rich and exciting environment" but "the design [...] appears to be considered as if it where a decorative and trivial luxury." [18]

The school influenced Hampshire County Architects' design of Stoke Park Infant School in Bishopstoke, which was completed in July 1989. [19] [20]

Closure

Falling pupil numbers led to the school's merger with the adjacent junior school in December 2006 to form Burnham Copse Primary School. [7] [21] [22] The infant school site remained in use until the end of the 2007–08 academic year, when refurbishment, remodelling, and extension of the junior school buildings had been completed. [22] This replacement school building won an RIBA Award in 2009, [23] which Marcus Binney described as "ironic", comparing the new building's "plain functional lines and detailing" with the "adventurous form and silhouette" of what they replaced. [6]

The closed site was vandalised and targeted by thieves, [24] and was demolished in August 2010 to save on security or maintenance costs. [17] Plans for redeveloping the site were delayed until the resolution of a nearby planning appeal; [17] [25] both were affected by the Atomic Weapons Establishment's three-kilometre (1.9 mi) emergency planning zone. [d] [17] [25] A 36-dwelling development was approved in 2016. [26] [27]

The Twentieth Century Society described the school's demolition as a "waste" and believed the buildings should have been listed; [6] the school was added to the society's "Lost Modern Heritage" list in 2017. [16]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The classroom building was approximately 12 metres (39 ft) tall [11]
  2. ↑ The hall/administration building was approximately 14 metres (46 ft) tall [11]
  3. ↑ Disabled lavatories were installed in the administration building [4]
  4. ↑ The Atomic Weapons Establishment, or AWE, is the successor to the AWRE

References

  1. 1 2 "Guide to School Records West Berkshire" (PDF). Berkshire Records Office . Retrieved 6 September 2025.
  2. 1 2 3 "Heritage Gateway - Results". www.heritagegateway.org.uk. Retrieved 6 September 2025.
  3. ↑ "Ordnance Survey Maps - 25 inch England and Wales, 1841-1952" (Map). Berkshire XLIV.10. Cartography by Ordnance Survey. National Library of Scotland. 1898.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Papadakis, Andreas, ed. (1984). "British Architecture 1984". Architectural Design . 54 3/4-1984: 25–26.
  5. ↑ Hampshire (England). County Planning Department (1973). Tadley Township Plan. Hampshire County Council. ISBN   978-0-900908-56-9 . Retrieved 2 September 2025.
  6. 1 2 3 Binney, Marcus (11 December 2010). "Acclaimed building demolished". The Times. Archived from the original on 2 September 2025. Retrieved 2 September 2025.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "Burnham Copse Infants School, Tadley, Hampshire – The Twentieth Century Society". c20society.org.uk. Retrieved 2 September 2025.
  8. 1 2 3 Twentieth Century Society, Twentieth Century (2024). 100 20th-Century Buildings (1st ed.). London: Pavilion Books. ISBN   9781849949606.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 Gorst, Thom (1995). The Buildings Around Us. Taylor & Francis. pp. 149–151. ISBN   9780203362259 . Retrieved 9 September 2025.
  10. 1 2 Barbrook, Roger (1988). "Cost Comment". The Architects' Journal. 187. Architectural Press Limited: 47. Retrieved 9 September 2025.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Macmillan, Sebastian (2004). Designing Better Buildings. Routledge. pp. 90–91. ISBN   9781134376988 . Retrieved 9 September 2025.
  12. ↑ John, Geraint; Heard, Helen, eds. (1996). Handbook of sports and recreational building design (2., repr ed.). Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. p. 35. ISBN   0750612932.
  13. ↑ "Taste of TADS - 2". Tadley and District History Society. Retrieved 2 September 2025.
  14. ↑ Willoughby, Richard (14 March 2012). "What makes Tadley special?" . Retrieved 3 September 2025.
  15. 1 2 Franklin, Geraint. "1985: Burnham Copse Infant School, Hampshire – The Twentieth Century Society". c20society.org.uk. Twentieth Century Society . Retrieved 3 September 2025.
  16. 1 2 "Ten more buildings join C20 Society's Lost Modern Heritage list – The Twentieth Century Society". c20society.org.uk. Retrieved 2 September 2025.
  17. 1 2 3 4 Richards, Lucie (8 August 2010). "Demolition of 'wigwam' begins". Basingstoke Gazette. Retrieved 6 September 2025.
  18. ↑ Madders, Martin; Royffe, Chris (13 April 1989). "Design and the Community: The Open Air Classroom". Education and Leisure in North European Urban Spaces, with Emphasis on Less Privileged Areas, Particularly in the United Kingdom. A Seminar: 49. Retrieved 12 September 2025.
  19. ↑ Hardingham, Samantha (1996). England: a Guide to Recent Architecture. Konemann. pp. 302–303. ISBN   9783895082832.
  20. ↑ Kaser, Ben; Green, Mick (May 1991). "A Class of Schools – A Comparative Study of West Totton, Bishopstoke and Fleet Velmead Schools, Hampshire" (PDF). Patterns 8. Buro Happold Consulting Engineers. pp. 6–9. Retrieved 12 September 2025.
  21. ↑ "Burnham Copse Infant School - GOV.UK". get-information-schools.service.gov.uk. Retrieved 2 September 2025.
  22. 1 2 Martin, Kate (15 January 2007). "Amalgamation results in new primary school". Basingstoke Gazette. Retrieved 2 September 2025.
  23. ↑ Design Council (23 February 2010). "Creating Excellent Primary Schools" (PDF). pp. 30–31. Retrieved 12 September 2025.
  24. ↑ Richards, Lucie (25 May 2010). "Vandalised ex-school building facing demolition". Basingstoke Gazette. Retrieved 6 September 2025.
  25. 1 2 Morton, Helen (16 November 2012). "Tadley Scouts all prepared for their new home". Basingstoke Gazette. Retrieved 6 September 2025.
  26. ↑ "14/02200/OUT". Planning Data Platform. Retrieved 6 September 2025.
  27. ↑ Bave, Jessica (8 March 2015). "Homes to be built on former school site". Basingstoke Gazette. Retrieved 6 September 2025.
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