Silcoates House and School

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SE32SW 4/60

STANLEY Wrenthorpe SILCOATES LANE (south side) Silcoates House and School

II

House and school. The house built c1748 for John Lumb, the school 1870s (mainly destroyed) 1907 and later, in-keeping. Brick with ashlar bands and dressings to principal openings. Welsh slate roofs. Two and three storeys. The main house is symmetrical and consists of a three-storey range of three bays with two-storey, two-bay side wings. The centre bay is set in a recessed giant round-arched panel. Central round-arched doorway with Tuscan engaged colonettes rising from ground-floor sill band supporting a frieze and triangular dentilled pediment. Two-storey canted bays to each side with colonnettes dividing the three-lights and ogee domed roofs. Twelve-pane sashes. Five six-pane sashes to second floor. Moulded brackets to gutter. Lateral stacks. Hipped roof. Twelve-pane sashes to side wings.

The school extends to the left with a two-storey range, with seven-bays of ground-floor casements and first-floor sashes and casements. Between bays five and six is a giant pedimented projecting wing with a giant Venetian window flanked by paired Ionic pilasters. Foundation tablets at base, oculus in tympanum.

Further to the left is another three-storey range, possibly 1870s, almost identical to the main house but with a further two bays at the left side. Further range to the left and left return, in-keeping, but of lesser interest. The rear of the house has a central projecting wing with a round-arched stair window. Further later additions.

Interior: not inspected but house is said to retain original stair and moulded ceilings.

The house passed from the possession of the Lumb family to the Kendal family. In 1820 it was leased by Dissenters who formed the Yorkshire Dissenters' Grammar School which in 1831 became the Congregational School for the Counties of York and Lancaster and in 1832 was renamed the Northern Congregational School. Further building took place in the 1870s and the five-bay three-storey range may be a survival of this period. Much of the school was destroyed in a fire of April 13th 1904.

N. Pevsner. The Buildings of England, 1967.

K. Taylor. Wakefield District Heritage, 1975. (Wakefield EAHY Committee)

Listing NGR: SE3109822092