Nant-y-Cwm Steiner Kindergarten

Cadw's description

Location

On the bank of the eastern Cleddau on the east side of the road from Groesford to Llwydrath Mill, south of the old schoolhouse which is the main Steiner school building. Southwest of Rydwilym Baptist Chapel (18872) on the other side of the river.

History

Two-classroom Kindergarten (for children aged 3 to 6) built in 1989 by Christopher Day, one of the founders of the Nant-y-Cwm Steiner school, with much of the construction work done by parent volunteers.

Christopher Day was a pioneer of eco-architecture, aiming to move away from mass-produced styles and materials to build vernacular-style buildings sensitive to their surroundings with hand-crafted details and low carbon footprints. Influenced by the ideas of Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy as applied to both architecture and education, he wanted to create environments that would nurture the soul and nourish the spirit. Day was born in Portsmouth and attended boarding school as a child, an institution he was highly critical of in later life. Having trained in both architecture and sculpture in London, Day moved to Pembrokeshire in 1972, where he began his career as an architect.

In 1982 Day and his partner with several likeminded parents purchased the disused Llanycefn Board School building (constructed 1875) and began to adapt it as a site for Steiner-Waldorff education, with the Kindergarten building following in 1989. The building figured prominently in Day’s popular 1990 book Place of the Soul: Architectural and Environmental Design as a Healing Art, which devoted a chapter to architecture’s impacts on children, where Day wrote: “Small children drink in everything in their surroundings, both animate and inanimate … They need soft, fluid and wonder-filled places for their imaginative world to blossom.”

Exterior

Irregular shaped building set on a site which slopes down from the roadside towards the riverbank below. Curving rendered stone walls, that splay outwards to meet the ground. Walls mostly red-washed except for cream section facing the road along the northwest flank. Undulating green roof connecting two main domes, planted with long grass, obscuring the chimney stack at time of inspection. Continuous timber fascia below roof membrane. Generally single storey in height although on its southeastern side down the slope it has a basement storeroom accessed from an exterior door with rendered brick arch over, flanked by small windows into cellars below the classroom above.

Northeast facing entrance is approached through woodland and is deeply recessed under eaves between two outward curves. Similarly recessed rear door facing southwest exits onto a platform with infant sized concrete seats and side gate to the road. Customised non-orthogonal double-glazed windows to larger openings, being two large three light roughly eye-shaped irregular hexagons, one for each classroom both facing the river, a five casement gently arched clerestory to washrooms facing the road, three panels with an arch to right of main entrance curving with the wall with a quadrilateral on the opposite side, and an irregular pentagonal set high in the southeast side. Smaller deep set ovoid windows dotting the exterior are single pane and mostly with tinted glass, with rendered brick arches over. Pitched flagstone and slate sills. Timber doors are rounded and chamfered to give a softer shape and front and rear doors incorporate a large ovoid single pane.

Interior

Entrance leads to a short, leftward curving corridor with staff boot room on the right, leading to central hallway lit by a high window with a low bench and timber coat hooks. This vestibule area is floored with red square tiles. Storerooms and rest rooms off to the right with steps down into the two classrooms ahead and to the left.

Both classrooms are essentially circular with a high domed ceiling, however the side walls fold into a sequence of small alcoves and niches, with the idea that the middle of the room is used for collective learning and the sides for individual play. Rough handmade plaster work painted white throughout the building. Timber floors, two “corners” in the second classroom have removable floor panels with ladder access into child scaled cellar spaces lit by a small, coloured glass window. Each has a kitchen and a fireplace at low height for children to access and various small niches in the walls for placing objects. As outside timber doors are curved and chamfered, and several incorporate a small irregular shaped window at an adult’s eye level. Hand carved door latches designed for ease of use by children. Interior carpentry and finishes appear essentially unaltered from what is shown in the architect’s published photos from shortly after construction.

Reason for designation

Listed for special architectural interest as an important work of late C20 eco-architecture by one of its chief exponents in Wales. Also of historic interest as an example of the growth of alternative educational movements in the post-war era and as evidence of growing concern with manmade environmental impacts and climate change. Described by Buildings of Wales as “An iconic building of the then barely nascent ecological movement”, it has been faithfully preserved and retains most of its original internal detailing.