Ollerton School House

This is a school-teacher’s house and schoolroom dating back to 1692, with additions made in the late 18th century. The building is constructed of red handmade brick, covered by slate roofs, and has timber windows and doors. It presents as a linear three-bay range.

The exterior, based on information from other sources, is of vernacular character, exhibiting mainly segmental-arched openings on the ground floor. The building faces east and is painted or washed white. The single-storey schoolroom bay is on the left, featuring a plank door and a window with a flat timber lintel and sill. The door surround is timber, painted black, with run-out-stop chamfered details and displays the inscribed date 1692 between ‘H’ shaped marks. A rendered ridge stack rises to the ridge of the adjacent two-storey bay, where the roof slates overlap. The central bay is two storeys high, with a door on the left and stacked windows to the right, surmounted by a ridge stack. The right-hand bay is also two storeys high, with a slightly higher eaves line and a shallower roof pitch. It has a single ground-floor window on the left, stacked central windows, and a gable stack to the right. A small, single-storey lean-to extension is attached to the right.

The south wall of the schoolroom is gabled and painted or washed white, with the cement-rendered gable of the house set back above. The west wall of the schoolroom is largely obscured by a single-storey lean-to that extends across the west wall of the house by approximately one metre. All walls are constructed of handmade brick in variations of English Garden Wall bond. The lean-to is windowless, while the house has first-floor windows in each bay, plus a small window on the right. The ground floor is partially obscured by a wooden lean-to on the left, as well as a greenhouse conservatory. Visible through the conservatory are a window and door in the central bay. The north gable is unpainted and blind, but features a pointed arch of projecting brick headers, likely marking the location of former chimney flues. Most of the ground floor is covered by a blind lean-to.

The interior, according to information from other sources, retains elements of the original plan, notably a rear dog-leg staircase with splat balusters, and much of the original north wall. The schoolroom retains a cast-iron fireplace, some lath-and-plaster ceiling, and a ledged plank door. Within the house, chimney breasts and some fireplaces remain, along with plank doors with early fittings and hewn ceiling beams. A small, stone-flagged cellar is located below the staircase.

Subsidiary features, based on information from other sources, include a pump and water trough outside the front wall, and a small detached outbuilding, possibly former toilets, to the north-west.