Lawrence Sheriff School (North Range and Hall)

SP 5075 SE 3/157

RUGBY CLIFTON ROAD Lawrence Sheriff School (North Range and Hall)

II School. 1878, extended in early and late C20. Flemish bond red brick with stone dressings and sham timber framing in gables. Plain tile roof with stone coped gable ends. Truncated brick gable-end stacks. Tiled wooden bellcote over centre.

Main front range with rooms either side of central entrance which leads to a large hall in wing at rear. Extended on left and right in early C20 and at rear later in C20. High Victorian Gothic style.

Two storeys and attic. Symmetrical three-bay north front. Central projecting gabled bay with large moulded pointed arch doorway, flanking buttresses, three painted armorial shields above, over which a moulded string rises as sill to two large pointed arch windows with plate tracery and leaded-pane lights with cusped heads; between the windows a large canopied niche containing a figure in the livery of the London Grocers' Company. Flanking the central gabled bay four-light stone mullion windows, the ground floor with transoms and lowered sills; wide gables above eaves with sham timber framing and pierced bargeboards.

Wooden bellcote on centre of ridge with louvres between balusters supporting conical slated spire with finial. Georgian style early C20 two-storey, five-bay wing on right with sash windows and single storey wing on left. Hall wing at rear has gables on sides with pointed arch windows.

Interior: only hall inspected, which has elaborate crown-post roof with arcading over the tie-beam.

Note: The school was founded as a separate Lower School for local boys when, after the Public Schools Act of 1868, the Great School (Rugby School) no longer provided free education for local children. It was erected at a cost of £15,000 including the site.

Listing NGR: SP5078875065