Wardlaw Junior High School, constructed in 1926–1927 at 1003 Elmwood Avenue in Columbia, is a distinguished example of 1920s Collegiate Gothic school architecture and was the first purpose-built junior high school in South Carolina. Designed by prominent Columbia architect James B. Urquhart, the three-story brick building follows a rectangular plan organized around a central courtyard. Its principal façade features projecting end and central bays, brick buttresses, a broad granite entrance stair, a pointed-arch entrance, Gothic window tracery, decorative brickwork, cast-stone belt courses, and ornamental stone panels. The surrounding grounds, once part of a plantation farm, retain mature magnolia trees that contribute to the historic setting.

Built during the superintendency of Dr. William Harvey Hand at a cost of approximately $220,000, Wardlaw was designed to accommodate the emerging junior-high-school concept, separating students in the middle grades from traditional elementary and high school programs. The school opened with approximately 700 seventh- and eighth-grade students and included specialized facilities such as science laboratories, manual-training and home-economics rooms, music and art spaces, a library, and a gymnasium. Named for noted educator Dr. Patterson Wardlaw, the school became an important model for junior-high education in South Carolina. Wardlaw Junior High School was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 for its architectural and educational significance.