Lichfield District Council Offices (Part) And Attached Wall And Gates

Schoolmaster's and boarders' house for Lichfield Grammar School, with former school room to rear. The main house dates from 1682 with an 18th-century rear wing and school room added around 1849. The front wall was also built around 1849, designed by Thomas Johnson and Son of Lichfield, with an 18th-century wall to the right return. The building is constructed of brick with a hipped tile roof and two brick stacks.

The main house is a double-depth plan building in Early Georgian style, comprising 2 storeys with an attic. The front elevation is symmetrical with a 5-window range. It has a plaster plinth, two brick platt bands, and a top modillioned timber cornice. The entrance features a large moulded doorcase with pulvinated frieze and cornice, and a battened door. The ground floor windows have rubbed brick flat arches over plate glass sashes; the first floor has small-paned cross casements in moulded frames. Two hipped dormers contain 2-light casements with iron opening casements. The right return is similar in treatment, with two platt bands and modillioned cornice. It has an entrance with a rubbed brick flat arch and overlight to a half-glazed door, flanked by blocked windows. A window at the right end has 4 lights with 4-centred heads. A stucco wing to the right has two 4-light windows and cross-casements to the first floor, with one window altered for use as an entrance.

The school room is constructed of brick with ashlar dressings and a tile roof with coped gables. It is a single-storey, 3-window range with a cross wing at the right end. It has a sill course and top cornice, with a shaped gable and finial to the wing. The entrance in the wing has a 4-centred head with foliate spandrels and a battened door. The 3-light double-chamfered-mullioned windows have elliptical heads and label moulds; two have 2 upper lights with shaped gablets. The wing includes a first-floor oriel with a 1:3:1-light transomed window. There are 3 rainwater heads. The return and rear elevations are similar but have later alterations and additions.

Interior: The house contains a central open-well spiral staircase with turned balusters. The first floor has exposed timber-framed partition walls and ovolo-moulded beams, with 2-panel doors. The attic has exposed trusses with curved principals. The school room features a hammer beam roof and two fireplaces with 4-centred heads. One fireplace has a timber surround with paired Tuscan columns. The building later contained council chamber furniture including a canopied seat, and wrought-iron scrolled chandeliers.

The front wall extends approximately 31 metres to the right and returns for approximately 47 metres to the rear. It has stone coping and cross-slits with gablets. The gateway has an elliptical head and coping with an enriched wrought-iron gate. The right end has paired wrought-iron gates and piers which are later additions. The return wall is brick, built in two phases, following the medieval town ditch and the parish boundary.

Lichfield Grammar School was founded as part of the Hospital of St John in 1495 and moved to this site in 1577. The school educated many notable men, including Samuel Johnson, David Garrick, and Joseph Addison. The school room was built on the site of an earlier room from 1577. The buildings became the offices and council chamber of Lichfield Rural District Council in 1920.