Merchant Taylors School (Girls) That Portion Which Was The Original Foundation

The original Merchant Taylors' Free Grammar School, now part of Merchant Taylors' Girls' School, was founded in 1620 by John Harrison, a citizen and merchant of London. The building has been altered and is now connected to modern structures at the rear. It features large coursed squared sandstone blocks with some freestone dressings and a stone slate roof. The plan is cruciform, consisting of a main range with a projected two-storey porch at the front and a projected stair-turret at the rear.

The exterior is two storeys high with a symmetrical arrangement of windows in a 3:1:3 pattern. It has a moulded plinth, a string course above the ground floor adorned with a frieze of paterae, a moulded eaves cornice, and coped gables with kneelers and apex finials. The porch contains a round-headed doorway with moulded imposts and 20th-century panelled divided doors. Above the porch, there is a tall square-headed blocked opening, now rendered and featuring a 20th-century sundial. Each side of the porch has a two-light mullioned window at the ground floor and a six-light transomed window above.

On either side of the building, there are coupled pairs of cross-windows at the ground floor, with a similar but shorter pair directly above them at the first floor, along with a six-light window between these and the porch. All windows have chamfered mullions and transoms with double-chamfered surrounds. Much of the masonry at the ground floor is covered with old incised graffiti, some dating to the 18th century but mostly from the 19th century. The gable walls also feature coupled cross-windows on both floors, with the upper window in the left gable now having wooden mullions and transoms. The rear of the building includes a stair-turret with a six-light window on each floor and a large extruded chimney stack for each bay, although the chimney stack for the second bay is now covered by an early 20th-century extension. The interior has not been inspected.