St John The Baptist Church Of England Primary School

St John the Baptist Church of England Primary School is a school and schoolhouse, initially constructed between 1854 and 1855 by William Butterfield for William Henry Dawnay, seventh Viscount Downe, and built by Charles Ward of Lincoln. Subsequent alterations and additions occurred in 1902 and 1962. The building is primarily red brick in English bond, with plain tile and Welsh slate roofing. Later 19th-century additions were designed in a matching style and using similar materials. The original section is rectangular, comprising an entrance hall with a schoolroom to the right and a schoolhouse to the left. A later classroom wing was added to the rear, along with additions to each end; a 20th-century addition fronts the building, and a substantial classroom extension is located at the rear right.

The north front consists of a single-story, three-window schoolroom range and a single-story, three-window schoolhouse with an attic. The central entrance features a segmental-pointed arch with a two-fold six-panelled door, with glazed upper panels. The original schoolroom has a projecting lateral stack flanked by a casement window and a 20th-century addition to the left. The original section retains a three-light sash window with glazing bars to the right, alongside a three-light window in the later extension. The schoolhouse section displays an original cross-mullion window with chamfered mullions beneath soldier and pointed relieving arches, a two-light sash with glazing bars, a buttress with tumbled-in brick, a 20th-century half-glazed door, and a single-light casement within an outshut at the left end. The steeply-pitched roofs have varying slopes, with a half-hip to the left. Plain tiles cover the schoolroom range, while slates clad the schoolhouse. A lateral stack serves the schoolroom, and paired axial stacks are present on the schoolhouse, both with offsets built with tumbled-in brick. The right gable end features a pointed four-light window with chamfered mullions and glazing bars. The left gable end, flanked by outshuts, presents a three-light ground-floor sash and a two-light attic sash with glazing bars and segmental arches. The rear elevation displays irregular fenestration and roof pitches, including original sashes (one retaining glazing bars beneath a pointed relieving arch) and a pointed three-light mullioned window to a 19th-century rear wing. An unsympathetic 20th-century addition is present on the left, considered to be of no special interest.

The school is contemporary with the adjacent church and vicarage, and shares stylistic similarities with buildings at nearby Hensall and Cowick. It was also known as Pollington-cum-Balne School.