Former Talbot Roman Catholic Primary School

PRESTON

SD5229 WESTON STREET 941-1/6/289 (East side) former Talbot RC Primary School

GV II

School, currently undergoing restoration and conversion as library. 1847-9 (dated 1849 over south doorway). Uncoursed brown sandstone rubble, with dressings of lighter-coloured sandstone and graduated slate roof. L-plan formed by a long rectangular range at right-angles to the street containing 2 large halls with a lateral passage between them, with a transept at the east end of the north side. Early English style. One storey under a high steeply-pitched roof, 7+1+7 bays, with low side walls and a large west gable to the street. The gable has side buttresses with 2 offsets, a stepped group of 3 tall cusped lancets in the centre flanked by similar but smaller lancets, and a coped gable with the stool of a former finial. The south front has matching buttresses, coupled cusped lancets in each bay (but the 3 easternmost bays now covered by a later C19 addition), and in the centre a wide one-and-a-half storey gabled porch breaking forwards slightly with a taller octagonal stair turret attached to its right-hand corner; the porch has a 2-centred arched doorway with shafts, a tablet above this with raised lettering "IHS / MUNIFICENTIAE / GULIELMI TALBOT / SOCIETATI PERENNE MONUMENTUM / [1]849" (1st digit missing), and a window of 3 stepped cusped lights in the gable; the turret has small lancets and a conical-octagonal cap. The roof has a small dormer above the porch and 2 ventilators on the ridge. The rear and north transept are in matching style (but former rear porch, subsequently altered as chimney, under reconstruction at time of survey), and the transept has one taller 2-light window with a gable over. Irregular extension to rear of transept, in similar style and materials. INTERIOR: wide central passage with inner porch at south end, large 2-centred arches in centre and coupled segmental-pointed windows beyond (with shafts) all opening into halls on each side; spiral staircase to attic over passage; large halls, each with 6 large arch-braced hammerbeam roof trusses which have trefoil arcading above the collars; 3-bay arcade to transept, which also has hammerbeam roof but of differing design. History: probably served as both church and school before opening of church of St Walburge (q.v.) in 1854. Forms group with that church, which it resembles in materials and roof construction.

Listing NGR: SD5294829927