Not yet derelict, quite

St Thomas School ‘to hold 400 boys, girls, and infants was built in 1904 in Oseney Lane on a site given by Christ Church’. ‘Boys’ is carved into the stone above what is now the main door, ‘Girls’ above a nearby door, and ‘Babies’ above the door round the back. ‘Under a reorganization in 1926 of central and west Oxford schools the senior children from St. Thomas's were transferred elsewhere. Classes for difficult children from all over the city were held in St. Thomas's school until 1929. In 1968 the roll numbered 82’ and the school closed in 1971.

Since then Christ Church has allowed  various organisations to inhabit its collapsing fabric and there are friezes of ducks and snails, stencilled when it was the FE college nursery, as well as sad collages of magazine pictures extolling sex, drugs, loud music and a life of leisure  unemployment from when the students’ union took it over. The large glass windows and glass-lined main corridor make it a beautifully light building but very cold in winter. At some point central heating was installed but the boiler stopped working long ago and the minimal maintenance the building now gets is done by its occupants, not its owner. Damp paint on the walls peels off and where roof slates have slipped, the rain has soaked the lath and plaster ceiling and from time to time pieces of it fall into the buckets collecting water below. 

This entropy is where I work, dodging the interior rain and helping people rescue lives that have been left to fall into decay.
 
Previously seen from the inside.