The Old School and Attached Boundary Wall is a Grade II listed building in the Amber Valley local planning authority area, England. First listed on 14 June 1995. Former school.

The Old School and Attached Boundary Wall

WRENN ID
knotted-rampart-gorse
Grade
II
Local Planning Authority
Amber Valley
Constituency
Mid Derbyshire MP: Jonathan Davies (Lab)
Country
England
Date first listed
14 June 1995
Type
Former school
Address
The Old School and Attached Boundary Wall, Lower Road, Mackworth
OS grid reference
SK 317 377
Coordinates
52.93583, -1.52923
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

This building is a former village school, now used as a hall, constructed around 1860 by William Mundy. It is a red brick structure, laid in a Flemish bond pattern with decorative blue brick banding, and features stone dressings around the window openings. The roof is tiled with alternating bands of plain red and blue fish-scale tiles, with dentilled verges. The design is in a simple Gothic style, with an asymmetrical plan. The main range is tall and runs east-west, with a lower, hipped-roofed wing to the front and a plain, 'T' shaped service range to the rear, all connected to an enclosure wall.

The front elevation has a tall, three-bay main range built on a shallow plinth. At either end are gabled, two-light windows with pointed arches, stone sills, mullions, and transoms. The window lights have cusped heads, and the mullions have splayed heads, creating a 'Y'-traceried effect. A wider, three-light window is centrally positioned and similarly detailed. Decorative blue brick bands are visible above sill level and at eaves level, and a single band runs around the pointed heads of the windows. To the left of the centre is an advanced, hipped-roofed wing with two flat-headed, two-light mullioned windows in the hip wall, and opposed pointed arched doorways in the front and rear walls. A three-light window is located in the right (east) gable, and a two-light window is in the left gable. The rear elevation is largely blind, with a low 'T' plan service wing connecting the school to the enclosure wall.

Inside, the right-hand part of the building is open to the roof, displaying an exposed scissor-braced common rafter roof. There is a corbelled fireplace with a sloping brick hood on the front wall (the external stack has been removed). An internal partition wall features a wide, shallow pointed arch and a panelled partition incorporating double doors. A twentieth-century ceiling has been inserted into a single bay room beyond the partition.

Attached to the school is a boundary wall approximately one metre high, with stone and blue clay copings. The entrance has square gatepiers with gabled ashlar caps and a boarded gate. The school is a near complete and unaltered example of a mid-nineteenth century school, typical of educational provision at a parish level in England between 1840 and the Elementary Education Act of 1870.

Local climate

The Old School and Attached Boundary Wall receives an average of 760 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 65% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 70% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 36 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 60% of listed buildings. Of these, 17 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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