Prior Pursglove College, Including Master'S House, Gymnasium And Assembly Hall

Prior Pursglove College, originally a grammar school and school house, dates to 1887 and was designed by Alfred Waterhouse. The building is constructed with dressed sandstone at ground floor level, red brick at first floor, and yellow terracotta dressings. The roofs are Westmorland slate, laid in diminishing courses, with clay ridge crestings. The building is in a Tudor style and has two storeys.

The main school building has a rectangular plan and an asymmetrical facade. The ground floor features a plinth and mullioned and transomed casement windows throughout. A chamfered string band runs between the floors, and the first-floor sills form a moulded string. Stepped brick corbels define the verges. A gabled dormer, slightly projecting on corbels, is located off-centre to the right, with a three-light window above a moulded, drop-arched entrance passage featuring granite spur stones. To the left of the entrance are four six-light ground floor windows, followed by six single-light windows to the first floor. To the right are two cross windows to the ground floor and two two-light windows above. The building has three stacks and a timber clock cupola on the ridge to the right, topped with a shallow copper dome. A tablet above the entrance arch records the school's founding in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in 1561 and its reconstruction in the reign of Queen Victoria in 1887. Carved stones from the original buildings were incorporated into the foundations.

The Master’s House adjoins the east side of the school and exhibits balanced asymmetry with three bays, the left and right bays being wider and gabled. The left-hand bay projects forward. It has six-light windows to the ground floor, three-light windows to the first floor, and a single light to the attic. Moulded strings run across the eaves line of the gables. The central doorway features a moulded architrave and a shouldered fanlight. A two-light window is positioned above the doorway. Attached is a slate-roofed, gabled timber porch with turned shafts on a stone dwarf wall to plinth height. The east elevation is similarly treated.

The listing also includes the gymnasium and assembly hall, which adjoin the north and west sides of the school. These were erected in 1898 by Waterhouse, using the same style and materials.