Holbrook

Apart from the Church, Holbrook has two entries: one for the Royal Hospital School and one for the Mill.

Starting with the school, Pevsner notes on page 275 that the Royal Hospital School was built between 1925 and 1933 by Buckland and Haywood and concludes that “The whole is certainly neither imaginative nor inventive, but it is in its scale and formality undeniably impressive. If the buildings had been erected at the same time in Central Europe or fifteen years later in England, they would have looked more lively and more of our century”. Despite these Suffolk buildings being of the 1930s the school itself celebrated its tercentenary as “RHS 300” in 2012. The school was founded in 1712 as part of Greenwich Hospital and was in the building that now houses the National Maritime Museum. Its success in teaching boys from seafaring backgrounds resulted in expansion and the move to Holbrook in 1933. It no longer insists on a seafaring background and takes girls as well as boys. Here is a general view:

Pevsner describes it as “A very large, strictly axial composition of buildings in the neo-Wren to neo-Georgian style, culminating in a tall stone spire on the tower which stands at the S end of the central assembly hall. The main view [as above] is from the estuary. Brick with stone dressings. Long two-storeyed centre with short projecting wings. Giant porticos also on the sides of the wings. They are here crowned by cupolas. Behind them lie the dining hall and gymnasium. Further to the E the big chapel with Byzantinesque domes (of concrete) and an apse with mosaics. Big giant portico also in the centre of the N or entrance side.” He then describes some of the staff housing.

The big giant portico in the centre of the N or entrance side:

Detail of small circular windows in N (left) and S (right) walls.

The other entry is for the Mill, of which Pevsner says “weatherboarded, by the pond S of the Church, a handsome picture”. Two views are below.