Alvanley School And Former Schoolmaster'S House

Alvanley School and former Schoolmaster's House is a village school and schoolmaster's house built around 1860, possibly designed by J S Crowther. The building is constructed of brown brick with stone dressings and features a grey slate roof, designed in a 13th-century style. It has an L-shaped layout, with a projecting cross-gable on the right and a 1.5-storey schoolmaster's house forming the cross-gable on the left. The brickwork is primarily in header bond.

The central bay of the school has a triple lancet window in the schoolroom beneath a flush gable, with a door to the left set in a steeply shoulder-arched opening. There is a diminishing chimney with an octagonal stone shaft at the junction of the central bay and the right cross-wing. The cross-wing features a window with three trefoil-headed lights on the front, a clock beneath a gabled canopy supported by brackets, and a small steepled belfry that houses a 17th-century bell from the church opposite, which was rebuilt in 1860. The right side of the cross-wing includes one flush gable and one projecting gable, each with a triple lancet window.

The schoolmaster's house has a boarded door in a shoulder-arched opening with a trefoil overlight, a four-light mullioned and transomed window, and a three-light leaded lattice dormer above. The overall design presents a pleasing, informal composition. The interior of the school has been altered. The church (St. John's) has character, and the school has even more, according to Pevsner. The two buildings share a compatible character, which supports the tentative attribution of the school to J S Crowther.