Cheltenham Ladies’ College, St Helen’s

Following the successful completion of a new build boarding house and a review of the boarding houses across the estate, Quattro was appointed as Education Architect by Cheltenham Ladies College to remodel St Helen’s and St Austin’s boarding houses.

These grade II listed buildings, built as boarding houses in the 1930’s, were in need of a complete refurbishment to meet the current independent school standards and bring the houses in line with the model layout developed by Quattro’s specialist education architects. As the site lies in a sensitive conservation area, our challenge was to deliver a design which would minimise impact on the historic environment whilst providing state-of-the-art facilities for all users.

Extensive consultation with Cheltenham Ladies College and both planning and conservation officers at an early stage, along with a thorough detailed design, meant planning consent was achieved on a difficult and challenging site resulting in a hugely successful project.

Sympathetic to the sensitive conservation area and reinforcing the quality of the extensive portfolio of buildings of The Cheltenham Ladies’ College, the outcome was a final design that provides a 21st century facility for all the users of the building.

Minimal new build stair extensions, in a style sympathetic to the original, enabled a layout with similar internal adjacencies to Bunwell boarding house.