Beech Court, Abingdon School

Opened in September 2018, Beech Court houses Abingdon School’s Sixth Form Centre, Library and Art Department. The building lies between Greening Court, Jekyll Garden and the café, in the centre of the school campus – adjacent to the Headmaster’s residence.

Procured on a two-stage basis, the project comprised the design and construction of a three-storey building. The steel-framed structure is clad using a combination of high-quality brickwork, zinc cladding and curtain walling to compliment the rest of the School’s historic estate.

Internally, Beech Court is divided into three areas. The ground floor is a dedicated Sixth Form Centre containing a mixture of classrooms, open plan social areas, offices and meeting rooms. The middle storey is home to the Centre for Independent Learning (Library), with a glass walkway linking the new building to Greening Court. Finally, the top floor is reserved for the Art Department, with facilities including classrooms, a kiln room, dark room, ceramics studio and exhibition space.

Aside from being linked to an occupied building at first floor level, with classrooms overlooking the construction area, the work was undertaken on a narrow site with numerous protected trees to the North and the South. With oversailing of the protected trees not permitted, the project had to be constructed in three phases from East-to-West.

Other notable features of the work included the removal of a WWII air raid shelter, the formation of a driveway and construction of a garage in the Headmaster’s garden (Lacies Court), along with a new boundary wall on Bath Street built in Cotswold stone.