This former school opened in 1876 and was built at a cost of £1000 to accommodate the pupils of two early 18th century charitable foundations: the Bluecoat School and the John Laughton School. The school is built in red brick with ashlar stone dressings and a Welsh slate roof. It is roughly U-shaped in plan, with separate entrances at the north and south ends. The building has a single storey with pitched roofs. The main range comprises of six bays, two of which have tall corbelled chimney stacks. Four of the bays have paired, two-over-two pane sash windows beneath shallow pointed arches. The chimney stacks are flanked by tall narrow sash windows. The north gable has a trio of sash windows, the central opening taller than the flanking windows. Within the gable is a lozenge-shaped light. The gables have dentil and dog-tooth patterned decoration to the verges, detailing which is continued at eaves level throughout. At the north end, the north-east corner is angled beneath a deep ashlar corbel, beyond which is the entrance to the former Bluecoat School. The entrance doorway is set within a steeply arched recess with a trefoil light above the door head. Above the doorway is a gablet with ashlar copings. The gable apex incorporates a plaque which reads ‘Boston Bluecoat School Founded AD 1703 [remainder illegible]’. Within the walls flanking the entrance bay are small sash windows. At the south end of the main north-south range, a second entrance is incorporated within an advanced arched recess with shallow stepped buttresses. Above the arch is a gablet incorporating a gabled ashlar bellcote. Within the gablet apex is a plaque which reads ‘John Laughton’s School. Founded AD 1708’. This entrance and its flanking walling are contained beneath a lower roof line. To the right is an angled gable with paired sashes and an apex lozenge light. The building then returns at an acute angle north-eastwards at a short end wing. The Bluecoat School had been established in 1703 and was originally housed in Church House on Sibsey Lane, and from 1805 in purpose-built premises on Red Lion Street. Laughton’s school was established as a result of a bequest from John Laughton in 1708, and originally occupied a house in Wormgate. This new school housed the 137 pupils of the Bluecoat Girls’ School at the north end of the new building and 130 boys in the John Laughton School at the southern end of the site. The schools were amalgamated to form a public elementary school in 1878. National legislation in the early 20th century saw the gradual transfer of responsibility for educational provision to local authorities, and the integration of charitable and church schools into the local authority system. The trend in the late 20th century was for many smaller urban schools to be replaced by larger complexes which were purpose-built by the local education authority. The former Bluecoat School eventually became Lincolnshire County Council’s Boston Youth Centre and remained in use as such until its closure. The building is distinctive in two senses, in that its design was conditioned almost entirely by the nature of the oddly-shaped plot at the junction of two streets which it occupies, and that it was a collaborative effort by two local charities. However, although it is competently detailed and makes good use of an awkwardly-shaped site, it is of modest architectural quality, its most distinctive details concentrated around the main entrances originally designed for the two charities which shared the site. It is a building of considerable local interest, but of conservative form and failed to meet the criteria for listing in 2011. {1}