Saint Mary'S Hall And The Old Grammar School

Saint Mary's Hall and The Old Grammar School are a mid-18th century grammar school and schoolmaster's house, possibly incorporating some mid-16th century fabric. The buildings are constructed of red brick with plain tile roofs. They sit on a sloping site, with the schoolhouse exhibiting one storey and an attic to the northwest, and two storeys and an attic to the southeast. The schoolmaster’s house adjoins the schoolhouse to the southwest, also with two storeys and an attic.

The northwest front of the schoolhouse features a plat band and a parapeted gable end to the left, with integral brick end stacks. It has a pair of hipped eaves dormers with 2-light wooden casements. The facade is four bays, with segmental-headed wooden cross windows and painted stone cills. A 20th-century plaque between the first and second windows from the right commemorates the school’s founding by Sir Rowland Hill in 1555, and notes that Robert Clive, 1st Lord Clive, was a pupil. The southeast front also has a plat band and three hipped eaves dormers. It is divided into a four-bay arrangement with segmental-headed wooden cross windows, and a two-story projection to the left with glazing bar sashes.

The northwest front of the schoolmaster’s house has a plinth, plat band, and parapeted gable ends with integral brick gable ends. Three hipped dormers are present with 2-light wooden casements. The facade is five bays, with glazing bar sashes and exposed boxes, segmental-brick relieving arches over the first-floor windows, and gauged heads to the ground-floor windows. Disturbed brickwork suggests that a door in the left-hand bay replaces a window. The right-hand gable end features plat bands, two bays with glazing bar sashes, and two small square attic casements. The southeast front has plat bands and four bays with glazing bar sashes, exposed boxes, stone cills, and gauged-brick heads, with a 20th-century glazed door and rectangular overlight in the third bay from the left.

The interior of Saint Mary's Hall includes a former ground- or first-floor school room. A reset mid-16th century stone bust of Sir Rowland Hill sits in a niche with an elliptical arch, inscribed "ROLANDUS / HYLL MILES" within a moulded panel. A 17th- or 18th-century dais is located at the southwest end of the hall, with plaster coving above to a moulded wooden cornice. The hall also contains an 18th-century oak winder stair. The basement (or ground floor) was formerly a kitchen, containing a large early 19th-century fireplace surround. Dormitories are located in the attic. The roof consists of a three-bay arrangement with trusses featuring upper crucks or curved principal rafters on one side. The Grammar School was originally founded in 1558 by Sir Rowland Hill. While facing a path leading to Saint Mary’s Church, the buildings are addressed to Phoenix Bank.