Old Grammar School (University Music Department)

DURHAM AND FRAMWELLGATE PALACE GREEN NZ 2742 SW (West side)

14/348 Old Grammar School 6/5/52 (University Music Department)

GV II*

School, now university department. Founded 1541; rebuilt 1661 for Bishop Cosin, western part schoolmaster's house altered early C18. C19 additions include windows of 1844 by Pickering. Rainwater heads 1899 on house and front wing. Sandstone, coursed and squared on main elevations, rubble at rear, with ashlar and red sandstone dressings; some brick dressings and rear patching. Stone-flagged roofs have stone gable copings and brick chimneys. School: one high storey, 4 bays. Chamfered Tudor-arched surrounds, with alternate-block jambs and label moulds, to ledged boarded door in first bay and blocked door in third bay. High renewed 3 x 4-light stone-mullioned-and- transomed windows in second and third bays, in double-chamfered reveals, under label moulds breaking eaves in half-dormers which have gables on cyma-moulded kneelers. Battlemented cast-iron rainwater heads, one dated 1864.

House: 2 storeys, 6 bays with left wing projecting from first bay. C17 chamfered Tudor-arched stone surround to 6-panel door in fourth bay; early C18 wood doorcase of architrave, pulvinated frieze and cornice. Sashes with glazing bars have renewed thin wood sills on ground floor and sloping stone sills on first, with flat brick arches on ground floor and header-course lintels on first. Steeply-pitched roof has slightly swept eaves; renewed brick chimney between fourth and fifth bays. Later left wing has Tudor-arched door and slit window in left wall with flat coping, and tripartite stone-mullioned window at right under stone bracketed eaves. C18 extruded porch has door blocked and window inserted.

Interior of school: plastered above plain panelled dado; roof scarfed principals on wood brackets; C19 beams. Generations of schoolboys' names carved in dado and window sills.

Interior of house: dog-leg stair, on lower central wall, has closed string with pulvinated frieze on lower flight and overlapping boards on upper flights; column balusters; lower handrail renewed, upper with low grip moulding. Panelled dado to stairs, vestibule and ground floor right room; architraves, arched doors, double and repeated to principal room which has Corinthian columns supporting enriched cornice of chimneypiece, and dentilled ceiling cornice. Bolection moulded doors and architraves in this room. Many 2-panelled doors.

A scheduled ancient monument.

Listing NGR: NZ2741842212