Ashgrove State School
Ashgrove State School is a heritage-listed state school at 31 Glory Street, Ashgrove, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Andrew Baxter Leven, James Findlay Leven and Arthur James Edwin Moase. The Depression-era brick school building was built from 1938 to 1959. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 24 April 2018.
History
Ashgrove State School, established 1876 on a site opposite the current school, is situated northwest of the Brisbane CBD and opened on its current site in 1925. It is important in demonstrating the evolution of state education and its associated architecture. It retains one Depression-era brick school building built in stages, a playing field partially formed by relief workers and a Boulton and Paul prefabricated building and its Department of Public Works extension.Ashgrove was traditionally part of the land of the Turrbal people. Government auction of the small farms here began in 1856. In January 1876, a public meeting was held at St John's Wood, the home of George Rogers Harding, with the intention of establishing a local school. Harding, a barrister and later a Supreme Court judge, had substantial land holdings in the area. The establishment of schools was considered an essential step in the development of new communities and integral to their success. Schools became a community focus, with the school community contributing to their maintenance and development; a symbol of progress; and a source of pride, with enduring connections formed with past pupils, parents and teachers. Residents donated £120 and Harding donated of land situated on Portion 667 bounded by Waterworks Road and Glory Street at their intersection with Coopers Camp Road. The land was transferred to the Secretary for Public Instruction in May 1876.
To help ensure consistency and economy, the Queensland Government developed standard plans for its school buildings. From the 1860s until the 1960s, Queensland school buildings were predominantly timber-framed. Standard designs were continually refined in response to changing needs and educational philosophy and Queensland school buildings were particularly innovative in climate control, lighting, and ventilation. Standardisation produced distinctly similar schools across Queensland with complexes of typical components.
The Ashgrove State School was officially opened on 4 November 1876. It was the first school built following the introduction of the Education Act 1875, which created the Department of Public Instruction and provided free primary school education to children aged from 6–12. This small timber school cost £678, £104 of which was contributed by local residents. The opening ceremony was performed by the Minister for Education, the Hon Samuel Griffith. The site included a teachers residence. Poet James Brunton Stephens was the first head teacher when classes commenced on 22 January 1877.
The school building was extended in 1896 and in 1922. The Waterworks Road tramline was extended to Oleander Drive in 1924; concurrent with the subdivision and sale of the Glenlyon Gardens Estate by developer TM Burke. The Dorrington Park and Frasers Estates along Enoggera Creek, were also subdivided at this time. In July 1924, the school committee was advocating a new modern school.
In March 1924, the minister had approved a land transfer offered by Burke, whereby the original school site would be transferred to the developer in exchange for on the opposite side of Glory Street. The school building was removed and relocated across the road to the new site on the northern side of Glory Street in 1925. The school building was enlarged for the official opening on 31 October 1925. Burke then acquired the original school site and subdivided it in 1926. The rapid expansion of Ashgrove saw the population increase from 144 in 1911 to 2500 in 1926. In August 1927, a further 800 housing allotments in the St Johns Wood and Royal Park estates were released. The Ashgrove School celebrated its jubilee in October 1927 with a fete aimed at raising funds to beautify the new school grounds.
The Great Depression, commencing in 1929 and extending well into the 1930s, caused a dramatic reduction of building work in Queensland and brought private building work to a standstill. In response, the Queensland Government provided relief work for unemployed Queenslanders, and also embarked on an ambitious and important building programme to provide impetus to the economy.
Even before the October 1929 stock market crash, the Queensland Government initiated an Unemployment Relief Scheme work programme managed by the Department of Public Works. This included painting and repairs to school buildings. By mid-1930, men were undertaking grounds improvement works to schools, creating many large school playing fields. These play areas became a standard inclusion within Queensland state schools and a characteristic element. The 1930 school fete raised funds to continue work on the school grounds, having already built a tennis and basketball court, with a football field and cricket pitch being developed at that time. Tree planting appears to have been minimal as in1931 the Queensland Government discontinued its Arbor Day program. initiated in the 1890s, where trees propagated at the Botanic Gardens were distributed to Queensland schools.
In June 1932 the Forgan Smith Labor Government came to power through a campaign that advocated increased government spending to counter the effects of the Depression. The government embarked on a large public works building programme designed to promote the employment of local skilled workers, the purchase of local building materials and the production of commodious, low maintenance buildings which would be a long-term asset to the state.
In June 1935, the Director of Education approved plans for a new brick school building for Ashgrove. Early plans were drawn up by Arthur James Edwin Moase of the Department of Public Works in 1936, with more detailed plans produced in February 1937; both sets of drawings approved by the Chief Architect and Quantity Surveyor, Andrew Baxter Leven. Construction approval was given in April 1937. The tram terminus had just been extended and the West Ashgrove shops subsequently developed there.
Depression-era brick school buildings form a recognisable and important type. Most were designed in a classical idiom to project the sense of stability and optimism which the government sought to convey through the architecture of its public buildings. Frequently, they were two storeys above an open undercroft and built to accommodate up to 1,000 students. They adopted a symmetrical plan form and often exhibited a prominent central entry. The plan arrangement was similar to that of timber buildings, being only one classroom deep, accessed by a long straight verandah or corridor. Due to their long plan forms of multiple wings, they could be built in stages if necessary; resulting in some complete designs never being realised. Classrooms were commonly divided by folding timber partitions and the undercroft was used as covered play space, storage, ablutions and other functions.
Despite their similarities, each Depression-era brick school building was individually designed by a DPW architect, which resulted in a wide range of styles and ornamental features within the overall set. These styles, derived from contemporary tastes and fashions, included: Arts and Crafts; Spanish Mission; and Neo-classical. Over time, variations occurred in building size, decorative treatment, and climatic-responsive features. Other schools of this E/B1 type were built in nearby Oakleigh State School and Ithaca Creek State School which both opened in 1934.
The new Ashgrove State School building was opened by the Minister for Health and Home Affairs, Ned Hanlon on 19 March 1938. The two storey brick school, plus undercroft, was planned to be built in stages. Phase one of the brick school, costing £6,884, included four classrooms and a cloak room on each floor to accommodate 360 pupils, with the undercroft housing an office for the head teacher, large play area, drinking troughs and seats. It did not include the entrance foyer. The classrooms were connected by folding partitions, which could open to provide assembly areas. The building was roofed in terracotta Marseilles tiles. The future remaining portions were planned to accommodate 880 pupils, with the intention of completing the original plan of an E-shape form facing Glory Street. The building was not completed to the 1936 plan, with the eastern end only having a one-storey section and the western end later being built to a similar, but not matching, plan.
In March 1937, the Department of Education began negotiations with Brisbane City Council to acquire part of the wide gully on the eastern boundary of the school, and a wide strip of the quarry on the western side to expand the playground. Access, but not ownership, was approved for the strip of the quarry. Portion 715 was surveyed in 1938 and transferred to the school in 1939. Woonga Drive was formed adjacent to the school by filling in the gully; including the retention of some trees along the new eastern boundary. Fill was procured from the quarry, financed by the Department of Education, with relief workers undertaking the labour, funded by the DPW. Funding for intermittent relief workers in school grounds was wound-down from September 1938, with the intention of creating full-time positions for workers. This left the Ashgrove playground in a dangerous state, according to a news report in October 1939. The government quickly allocated funds to employ 30 men for four weeks to complete the work.
In early 1939 the old school building was moved back across Waterworks Road, to a new site for the Crèche and Kindergarten Association's first pre-school in Brisbane. By July 1939, the Ashgrove State School committee was seeking the construction of the second section of the brick building. This was delayed by the outbreak of World War II two months later; the only construction at that time being the digging of slit trenches in the playground in January 1942.
While there was an intention to complete the brick building at the end of WWII, the shortage of materials impeded the process. Bricks were ordered from the Newmarket Brickworks in September 1945, but the brickworks site had been occupied by the army during the war and was yet to resume production. Instead, two additional temporary timber classrooms were added to the site in September 1945. Overcrowding was occurring, with 120 new pupils enrolled in 1947. The brick building was extended during early 1947 at a cost of £8,871. It included an entrance hall, head-teachers room, two classrooms on the ground floor, teachers' rooms and classrooms on the first floor, with a larger play area and a storeroom in the undercroft. The new male and female toilets and septic system, originally planned in 1945 were completed in 1947.
By February 1950, Ashgrove State School was in need of temporary classrooms following the initiation of the first prep classes, which generated an extra 90 enrolments. The DPW's post-war difficulties in procuring architects, tradesmen and building materials led to the use of temporary structures. The DPW imported 95 prefabricated school buildings, providing 106 classrooms, from Boulton and Paul Ltd of Norwich, England in 1951. They were erected at many schools across Queensland through to 1958.
Boulton and Paul buildings were timber-framed and timber-clad, had a verandah as circulation, and a gable roof. Ideally, they were oriented so the verandah faced north and the classroom faced south but were also added as extensions to existing buildings regardless of orientation. They had prefabricated wall and ceiling panels, roof trusses and banks of awning windows. The buildings, erected on concrete piers placed at centres were generally highset, providing play space underneath, and included semi-enclosed stairs between the classrooms and ground level. The buildings had extensive areas of timber-framed awning windows which provided more glazing than had ever been used in Queensland classrooms; almost the entirety of the verandah wall and the opposite classroom wall were glazed. Natural ventilation and lighting was abundant. The classrooms of building type FT1 were, larger than most previous classrooms.
The Ashgrove State School's Boulton and Paul building was completed by 1953. It was extended during 1955–56 with two DPW designed classrooms on the western end of the building. The DPW design replicated the existing Boulton and Paul structure, although with higher window sills. The glass screening at the western end of the verandah was relocated to the western end of the extension at this time. In 1954, lavatory facilities were extended on the northern side of the ground floor of the eastern end of Block A. The wide strip on the western edge of the campus was acquired by the Education Department in 1956.
The post-WWII period was a time of architectural experimentation. In this new era, educators considered the brick buildings of the 1930s too severe and unsuited to modern educational ideas. They demanded up-to-date, "flexible" buildings of light construction using materials that were easy to clean. New designs were developed that borrowed from the successes of the Boulton and Paul buildings and included more and larger areas of glazing throughout, glazing-enclosed stairs, a floor truss system that eliminated the stumps of the understorey and created unencumbered play spaces, and larger classrooms. The next extension to the Ashgrove State School demonstrated this evolution in school design. It is thought that this wing was designed by Jim Leven, whose father Andrew Baxter Leven had approved the original building. Jim Leven had travelled, studied and worked in Europe and America between 1948 and 1953, the design of this wing reflects international design of the 1950s.
In 1957, plans for an extension to the brick school building were produced. Face bricks remained difficult to procure. This new wing, an amended, more modern version of the original 1935 plans, was constructed in a combination of brick, rendered brick and ribbed panels, with awning windows to the south, and was completed in 1959. It comprised three additional classrooms to the first and second floors, and toilets and open play space to the understorey. The northern elevation did not fulfil the intended E-shape footprint of the original plans. Instead, a stairwell was constructed on the northwest corner of this extension, fully enclosed with glass and louvres. A northern verandah connected to the verandah of the earlier section, providing access to the stairs and classrooms, and was enclosed with metal-framed fixed glass.
Other changes occurred at the school from the 1950s. In 1954, the school began fundraising for a swimming pool; completed in 1957. In 1960, enrolments peaked at 820 pupils. Sewerage was connected in 1963 and the toilets were rearranged. During the late 1960s a concrete block retaining wall was built in two sections between the playing field and the school grounds. The large fig tree on the southeastern corner of the grounds appears to have been planted in the early 1960s. A pre-school was built in 1973 and a dental clinic built in 1978. The 1947 male toilet block was substantially altered through its conversion to an art room in 1991.
Changes were made to Block A during 1996–7 including: the replacement of folding partitions on the second floor with steel stud partitions, new windows enclosing the verandahs, the part-removal of verandah walls at the western end of the building, and the part-removal of verandah walls to the easternmost classrooms.
In 2002, the school grounds were extended, with the acquisition of a further in the northwest corner of the grounds. Multi-purpose court 1 adjacent to the pool is the site of a tennis court built by the school committee in the late 1920s.
Ashgrove State School has commemorated its centenary with a publication in 1977 and its 125th anniversary with a subsequent book in 2002.
In 2018, the school continues to serve the Ashgrove community as it has since 1877; and from 1925 at its current site. In 2018, the school retains its Depression-era brick school, the Boulton and Paul building and its DPW extension, the playing field, levelled by relief workers, set in landscaped grounds. The school community continues its fundraising activities to support the school's educational, social and facilities development as it has done for generations.