School House And Attached School

The School House and attached school, located in Chirbury, is a building dating from the early to late 17th century, with later additions and alterations. It features a timber frame with painted brick infill and a graded slate roof. The structure has two storeys and an attic, comprising three framed bays. The framing includes close-set vertical posts with three middle rails and long straight tension braces at the front, while the right gable end has square panels. A carved bracket at the front corner of the left gable end suggests that this gable was once jettied.

The building has mid- to late 19th century windows, with cast-iron and wooden multi-paned casements, including three on the first floor and one on either side of the late 17th century central porch. There is also a window in the inserted centre gable that lights the attic. The porch features a boarded door with decorative strap hinges and a massive external limestone stack with a 19th century red brick shaft on the right gable end. At the rear, there is a lower early 19th century gabled brick addition.

Attached to the left is a mid-19th century school building made of uncoursed limestone rubble with a plain tile roof. This single-storey structure has a gable that breaks the eaves at the centre and features three mullioned and transomed windows, with the central window having a pointed head. The entrance is through a pointed doorway in a lean-to on the left, which has a bell under a gabled canopy at the gable end.

Inside the house, the timber frame is partly exposed throughout, with chamfered spine beams that have straight-cut and stepped stops. There is an infilled inglenook fireplace on the ground floor that connects to the external stack, and an original oak staircase leading from the first floor to the attic. The roof structure consists of collar and tie beams in three bays, with double purlins that have been cut through at the front for the insertion of the gable.