User:Ruskinmonkey/Old St Paul's Choir School

Old St Paul's Choir School is a building in Carter Lane in the City of London. It is now used as a Youth Hostel.

The building was designed in 1874 by F C Penrose, the surveyor of St Paul's Cathedral. It has two main storeys, with an additional two storeys, lit by dormer windows, in the roof space. The walls are faced with white Suffolk bricks, with terracotta dressings. The facade incorporates elements borrowed from Renaissance  architecture including Venetian and round windows, and is elaborately decorated with  'sgraffito'  work, in fact executed  in two colours of cement, a pale one for the ground colour and a darker one for the design.

The sgraffito design incorporated a chariot wheel over what was originally the entrance to the stables, and along the front of the building,  a scroll with notes and musical instruments; a beehive with books; the New and Old Testaments; the scales of Justice and a garland to signify victory. A frieze running around the building around the building at first floor level displays a text from St Paul's Letter to the Galatians 6:14: "MIHI AUTEM ABSIT GLORIARI NISI IN CRUCE DOMINI NOSTRI JESU CHRISTI / PER QUEM MIHI MUNDUS CRUCIFIXUS EST ET EGO MUNDO."

When first built, the east end of the building was intended to serve as the headmaster's residence, while the remainder was devoted to schoolrooms, dormitories and a dining hall for the 40 pupils.