School House Including Former Wash House And Pump

School House including Former Wash House and Pump

Schoolhouse originally designed as two dwellings for the headmaster and caretaker, converted in the first half of the 20th century into a single dwelling for the headmaster, now occupied as a private dwelling. The schoolhouse and adjacent school were built in 1872. Funding was provided by the Duke of Bedford and the schoolhouse was built to the estate design in local limestone with ashlar quoins and chimney stacks and a slate roof. It is double pile in plan, with two storeys, pitched roofs and two stacks, one for each side of the house. The porch at the north-east corner originally gave access to the caretaker's quarters. It has a gabled roof, four-centred arch to the front in ashlar and single windows and buttresses to each side. A similar porch originally on the north side gave access to the larger part of the house occupied by the headmaster, but this has since been removed and the stonework incorporated into a modern double garage. A conservatory has been built in the position of the porch.

The main façade of the schoolhouse faces south and comprises a central door with plain rectangular over-light and stone surround. There are two windows, also set in stone surrounds, one to the left and one to the right of the door. These comprise two-light mullions fitted with casements. Above the door is a single window, part dormer, identical in design to those below, but set into a coped gable. A stone plaque in the gable bears the estate crest and the construction date of 1872.

At each corner of the house the gable copings are finished with finely carved ashlar kneelers. The windows throughout the house are mostly two-light mullions of identical design. Double glazed panels have been fitted to the exterior face of the windows but the original frames appear to survive behind.

Inside, the original plan form and differentiation between the headmaster's and caretaker's quarters can still be read despite the conversion of the house into a single dwelling. The western part of the house, nearest the school, was the headmaster's domain and this is indicated inside by the use of diamond-set quarry tiles on the ground-floor as opposed to square-set tiles in the caretaker's rooms. The headmaster also enjoyed the use of the main staircase which rises from the centre of the house at the front. The staircase is simple with plain, square-sectioned, wooden balusters and wooden hand rail. The caretaker's quarters, accessed via the surviving porch, comprised two rooms on the ground-floor, with a boxed-in winder stair giving access to the first-floor. Most of the original fireplaces, doors and skirtings survive.

To the rear of the house is a rectangular, single-storey building which housed a lavatory and wash house for the headmaster (in the west half) and the caretaker (in the east half). It is built to the same style and high standard as the house, in limestone with quoins and a centrally placed chimney stack in ashlar. The gable ends have long slit openings dressed in ashlar. Original features such as the fireplace, copper, stone sink, drying rack and wooden earth closet survive inside. Mounted on the centre of the south wall is a double pump which originally provided a separate supply of water to the two occupants of the adjacent schoolhouse.

The schoolhouse at Stibbington is a good example of an early board schoolhouse built in the Duke of Bedford's estate style. Following W E Forster's Education Act of 1870, which provided for the establishment of district boards of education to provide elementary schools and free education to those children whose parents were unable to pay, Stibbington was amongst the first of these board schools to be built. The schoolhouse was lived in by successive headmasters and caretakers until it was converted to a single dwelling for the headmaster in the first half of the 20th century. After the school closed in 1982, it was sold into private ownership by Cambridgshire County Council, which still owns the school. The adjacent school survives largely unaltered and is now an educational day centre. The building retains an unusual plan form, designed to accommodate both the headmaster and caretaker, and has group value with the adjacent school.