Little Barford School

Former school, built in 1872, with a porch added around 1880.

MATERIALS: the roof has a clay tile covering and the walls are constructed of gault brick with red sandstone dressings.

PLAN: the building is L-shaped on plan, comprising a rectangular-plan school room with a rectangular-plan porch added to the north end of its west elevation.

EXTERIOR: The single-storey schoolroom has a pitched roof with a clay tile covering, featuring two decorative bands of scalloped tiles to its east and west slopes. The walls are constructed of gault brick laid in Flemish bond, with a dogtooth eaves course, red sandstone quoins, a continuous red sandstone sill course, and a chamfered plinth course; the gable ends also have a red sandstone platband over their windows. The front (west) elevation to Barford Road has two window openings, and the north and south gables each have a window opening, all shallow-arched with polychromatic gault brick and red sandstone voussoirs. Each window has two casements of three vertical lights separated by a central timber mullion. At the north end of the front elevation, a single-storey lean-to porch was added around 1880, and has a shallow-arched porch opening with a recessed ledged-and-braced timber door, and a small casement window to the left; the rear of the porch has a two-over-two casement window. Similar to the earlier schoolroom, the porch has a clay tile roof covering, dogtooth eaves course, and polychromatic voussoirs to the window and porch openings. The rear (east) elevation of the schoolroom has a central gault-brick chimneystack, the top of which has been removed.

INTERIOR: Internally, the porch has 35 numbered coat hooks at child height in two rows on its east, west and north walls, and a hand basin in the south-west corner. The interior of the school room has a hammerbeam roof, with two decorative trusses resting on stone corbels, and exposed rafters, purlins and wall plates. The walls are of painted brick, with a wooden picture rail, and wooden cladding to dado height. The floor is covered with wooden floorboards. The door opening from the porch has a pointed arch and a chamfered brick surround with wall cladding to dado height. The north wall has eight fitted cupboards under the window. The east wall has a central fireplace with a stone surround, later blocked, with a cast-iron burner added in front in the early C20. To the left of the fireplace are four cupboards to dado height.