The Old Queen Elizabeth Grammar School

This free grammar school with attached master's house was built in 1684, with a slightly later caretaker's house added. The buildings have undergone alterations in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and are constructed in Tudor-Gothic style.

Construction and Materials

The buildings are constructed of roughly coursed rubble, whitewashed on the south and west elevations and mortared on the east. Exposed chamfered sandstone quoins and dressings are visible throughout. The roofs are covered with graduated stone slates with stone tile ridges.

Plan and Layout

The building forms an L-shape, with the school block facing south and the master's house extending northward from its east end. The school has a narrow rectangular rear extension, while the master's house features a short gabled rear extension and a lower block to its north end, possibly serving as a caretaker's house.

Exterior Description

South Elevation

The principal south elevation has two storeys and five bays under a pitched roof with coped verges and ball-topped kneelers. A chamfered plinth runs along the base. The central entrance doorway has six fielded panels set within a moulded stone surround with scrolled brackets carrying a cornice with a broken pediment, each arc ending in a spiral disc. This doorway is now set forward of the wall within an early 20th-century shallow segmental-headed porch of rusticated simulated ashlar. Two-phase stepped buttresses appear between the first and second bays and between the fourth and fifth bays.

On either side of the central entrance are pairs of two-light mullioned windows with trefoil heads. The upper floor windows are set immediately beneath the eaves and are square-headed with two broad lights separated by a mullion. Between the two tiers of windows are patches of infill indicating the former presence of taller windows. All windows have latticed leaded glazing with casements, and those on the lower floor retain holes from vertical iron bars.

West Elevation

The west elevation features two gables joined by a low parapet, partly arcaded, with a part-ashlar, part-rubble plinth. The gable end of the schoolroom to the right has a single three-light mullioned ground floor window with trefoil heads and evidence of a former transom. At first floor level is a tall two-light square-headed mullioned window of late 19th-century character. A similar area of rubble infill as seen on the south elevation is visible between the two windows. The gable end of the rear extension to the left has a pair of inserted two-light mullioned windows and a rainwater head dated 1903. A pair of tall chimney stacks are thought to be of later 19th-century date.

East Elevation

The east elevation has a low rubble plinth with a ground floor three-light mullioned window and a three-light mullion and transom window of later 19th-century date above. The head of the upper window incorporates a re-used medieval trefoil head. To the north is the master's house of two storeys and two bays with rebuilt stepped and corniced stacks at both ends of the ridge. There are four large inserted late 19th-century three-light mullioned windows and a central entrance with 17th-century mouldings and a six-panel door with glazed upper panels.

North Elevation

The north gable of the master's house has rusticated quoins and a shaped kneeler with a ball finial, along with a pair of attic lights each with a socket for a central bar. The lower part is obscured by the attached but lower possible caretaker's house, which has two storeys of coursed squared stone with a two-light mullioned window and a similar basement window on the north side, each retaining a vertical iron bar to each light.

Interior

School Room

The school is entered from the front door into a small lobby, from which a six-panel door opens into the large former schoolroom with a folding partition. A large segmental-arched fireplace occupies the north wall of the eastern part of the room and is the original fireplace. A six fielded-panel door set diagonally at the north-east corner gives access to the attached master's house and is considered to be an historic feature, probably re-used.

Other features thought to date from the early 20th-century remodelling include the overmantle and cornice of the fireplace, a section of panelling to the east, panelled pilasters flanking the fireplace and diagonal doorway, a second fireplace set diagonally at the north-east corner with an ornate Jacobethan surround of cast ceramic, and the moulded dado and pelmet rails. The ceiling is divided into seven bays by boxed-in beams which might be older, with axial joists carrying narrow boards above.

A four-panel door leads through the north wall of the schoolroom into the school's rear block, housing a stair hall at the west end and a room at the east end.

Stair Hall

The stair hall is panelled with simulated ashlar work, all thought to date from the early 20th-century remodelling. The dog-leg stair has stick balusters and a moulded handrail and is thought to be of early to mid-19th-century origin. It has been altered by the addition of a raised handrail, a short section of balustrade and a more elaborate newel post.

Master's House Ground Floor

To the east of the stair hall are the two ground floor rooms of the master's house, each now entered through a separate doorway. The south room has a wide early 20th-century opening framed by a screen under a flat pointed arch and retains a fireplace with a lugged timber architrave and an ornamented mantlepiece considered to be of early 20th-century date.

The north room is entered through a doorway with a three-centred arch and a chamfered surround thought to be original to the building but altered in the early 20th century. This room has been extended to incorporate former passages from the front door and along the west wall; the stub of the entrance passage wall remains to the north of the front door. A blocked former doorway with a moulded architrave between the north and south rooms is visible in the south wall, and there is an original simple square-headed fireplace with a bolection moulding on the north wall.

To the west of the fireplace, a plain doorway opens into the northern extension where a short flight of steps leads down to the basement, which has rough beams carrying old floorboards. A boxed-in stair rises to the upper floor, which has an exposed roof structure with at least one centre original asymmetric collar-beam truss rising from a shaped corbel on the east and a short wall post carried by a similar corbel on the west. The ridge and western purlins are relatively recent.

To the north of the stair hall, the rear block of the master's house has an inserted kitchen and toilet. Immediately to the north of the stair, a doorway with an altered six-panel door leads into a room occupying the west end of the school's rear block. A broad projection on its south wall might be a former external stack to a second early fireplace within the schoolroom, and a shallow recess to the east is possibly an early window opening to the schoolroom.

First Floor

The first floor stair hall is similarly panelled with early 20th-century simulated ashlar work. Modern toilets occupy the north side. The west side has a two-panelled door to a room within the school's rear block; this room has early 20th-century detailing and a fireplace with sunk quadrant moulding thought to be of late 18th or early 19th-century date. The window opening on the north wall is flanked by raised pilasters and there is a cornice. The three-bay roof structure has hammer-beam trusses with short wall posts carried on corbels below the hammer beams, which have raised flowers obscuring metal bolts.

The first floor of the schoolroom has been partitioned and is entered from the north side of the stair hall through a small lobby with a panelled ceiling, a cupboard with fielded-panel doors possibly of early 18th-century origin, and two-panel doorways into two large rooms and a small central one. The roof that spans the whole range has five bays; the two-bay end rooms are spanned by trusses of principal rafter form with tie beams removed, replaced collars and original high-level collars with pegged joints, and two boxed-in purlins on each slope. The trusses that delineate the central room are concealed but considered to be altered. The eastern room has a recess in the north-east corner thought to be a blocked doorway and a plain fireplace of probable early 20th-century date. The western room has the corbelled-out stack of the ground floor fireplace in its north-west corner.

Master's House First Floor

The first floor of the master's house has a wide entrance into a lobby with two-panel doors opening into a pair of bedrooms. The lobby has a steep winder stair to the attic with a newel post at its foot of four urn-shaped balusters. Above the lobby are exposed transverse ceiling beams of heavy square section. The south room has a square-headed fireplace with 17th-century mouldings similar to those of the front door, and what is considered to be a blocked opening in its south-east corner. The fireplace in the northern room is of similar form but modified by the insertion of a circa 1900 Tudor arch.

A relatively recent inserted opening through the west wall leads down a pair of steps into a small room housed within the rear block. This room has a fireplace with a lugged stone surround flanked by cupboards, those to the west possibly Victorian. The winder stair from the lobby rises to the attic, which has narrow floorboards and a shallow projection to the north gable. The four-bay roof has collar-beam trusses of pegged construction carrying two levels of heavy purlins and an upright section ridge; one purlin has been cut short and two purlins have been replaced. The lower purlin of the southernmost bay has incised marks possibly relating to felling or shipment, and the three trusses have assembly marks.