Virgil Street Board School opened officially on 30 November 1900 and was built Charles C. Dunn (Cardiff) to the designs of Messrs. Robert and Sidney Williams (Cardiff). The school was built at a cost of £22,000 in an area one acre and a half in size and surrounded by fields, yet in a very populated part of the growing town. The school consisted of a larger main block and a smaller infant block, changed its name to Ninian Park Council School in 1911.

Upon opening, a description of the school premises was provided in the Western Mail: 'In addition to the school accommodation there is a caretaker's house, manual instruction centre, and large playgrounds. The schools are built with the classrooms grouped around central halls, thus affording constant supervision of the schools by their respective heads. The buildings are of a very substantial character, being built of rubble masonry, faced with dressed "Newbridge" stone and Bathstone dressing. The buildings consist of the infants' school - a one-storey building - containing nine classrooms, teachers' rooms, stores and assembly hall 67ft. 6in. by 27ft. The school will accommodate 490 infants. The girls' and boys' school is a two-storey building, having the girls' department on the ground floor, and the boys on the first floor. The arrangement of the two floors is very similar, each containing seven class-rooms and a central hall 73ft. 6in. by 28ft. 3in.; teachers' rooms, and stores. The total accommodation provided in the boys' and girls' department is for 880 children. Two entrances have been provided for each department. The whole of the rooms are heated by large open fires. A fresh-air flue is conveyed to the back of each fireplace, and is admitted into the rooms after being warmed to a healthy temperature. There are fresh-air inlets in each room and foul air outlets in the centre of each ceiling carried up to ridges of roofs to patent ventilating turrets, thus occasioning a constant supply of fresh air. The greater part of the windows are hung to open. The floors throughout are of concrete, with wood block flooring laid on same. The manual instruction school consists of a workshop 55ft. by 33ft. 3in., with windows facing north and south, and with a lantern-light running the whole length of the roof. It is heated by low-pressure hot-water with coils placed upon each side of the room.'

During the First World War the school was used as a hospital with the pupils being transferred to Court Road School. A plaque in memory of the 31 soldiers who died in hospital at Ninian Park School can be found in St. Paul's Church, Paget Street. The buildings are still in use as Ninian Park Primary School.

RCAHMW, 2011.

Updated by Meilyr Powel, RCAHMW. November 2023

Sources:

'History Of The School', ninianparkprm.cardiff.sch.uk; 'Board School Accommodation at Cardiff', Western Mail, 1 December 1900, p.6; 'Half-Century of Education', Western Mail, 28 October 1955, p.8.

Site Record

Virgil Street Board School; Ninian Park Primary School, Grangetown