Queen Mary'S Grammar School Buildings

Queen Mary's Grammar School Buildings is a school dating from 1850, designed by the local architect Edward Adams. It is constructed of red Flemish bond brick with stone dressings and a plain tile roof, exhibiting a "Tudorbethan" style. The building has a roughly I-shaped plan, comprising a central schoolroom range flanked by two- and three-storey wings.

The entrance front, symmetrical to the road, features five central bays with 4-centered arches to the ground floor, originally an open colonnade but later glazed in the 20th century. Above the arches are large cross-windows of the schoolroom with ashlar surrounds and 4-centered heads to the lights, connected by a continuous hood-mould. A stone plaque with Gothic script states: "The Grammar School/founded by Queen Mary/AD 1554./Rebuilt/AD 1849." A brick parapet tops the wall, with a gablet above each bay. The central block has a separate longitudinal roof with shaped gables and large chimney stacks. Projecting wings on either side each have three storeys and two shaped gables facing the road. Contemporary etchings indicate the wings were originally similar in design, with the left wing formerly including a headmaster's house. This house retains cornicing to two ground floor rooms and a central ceiling rose. The headmaster's house features a central doorway with a 4-centered head, flanked by 2-light casements on the ground floor, similar windows to the first floor around a single-light window, and two similar windows with a diamond-shaped light above on the second floor. The right wing has been altered to two floors and now has two long windows to either side of a central single light.

A substantial wing was added to the rear in the later 19th century, and a 20th-century metal-clad stair tower, both of which are excluded from the listing. The rear of the building retains original metal-framed lattice windows. Internally, the former headmaster's house has cornicing to two ground floor rooms and a central ceiling rose. The former colonnade has been converted into a canteen. The schoolroom at first floor level has a panelled roof with braces consisting of corbels supporting wall posts and arched braces connected to scissor beams.

The school was founded in 1554 and endowed with around 300 acres. In 1838, it was divided into a grammar school and a commercial school. After occupying a temporary location on the town’s racecourse, the school moved to its present location in 1850. In 1873, the school’s property was vested in the charity commissioners, becoming non-denominational, and girls were educated in an adjacent building, Queen Mary's High School for Girls. In 1965, a separate boys' school was built, and the buildings became part of the girls' school.