Church Cottage Former School And School House Parish Room

Church Cottage, formerly a school and schoolhouse, is now a parish room and cottage built in 1848. The building features patterned brickwork, using red brick stretchers and yellow brick headers, with a slate roof and internal stacks. The cottage is two storeys high, with lozenge-shaped leaded lights and ovolo mullions on two first-floor casements, along with a central single light window. On the ground floor, there are two cross-frame leaded light casements on either side of a doorway that leads into a gault brick porch with a four-centred outer arch. The west gable end displays the shield of arms of Clare College, Cambridge, along with the inscription "W.1848".

At the rear, the school room forms a T-plan and shares similar brickwork and a slate roof. It is a single storey with a three-bay west front, featuring a slightly projecting and pedimented central bay. A stone panel inscribed "Gamlingay Schools 1848" is located in the tympanum, flanked by two cross-frame lozenge-shaped leaded lights. The outer bays contain cross-frame casements with three lights.

Inside, the former school room retains a reredos that may have been reset from the Chapel of St Etheldreda in Ely Place, London, or from the chapel in Hatton Garden, Holborn parish. This wooden reredos, originally grey marbled and now painted brown, is arranged in two heights with side panels flanking a pedimented centre piece. The side panels, which are flanked by Corinthian pilasters, feature bolection and fielded panels, with the upper panels having segmental heads. The tympanum of the pediment displays a winged cherub head and garlands of fruit, flowers, and ears of corn, supported by a bracketted central corbel with a floral knot. The design of the reredos bears some resemblance to work by Sir Christopher Wren at Merton College Chapel and in various City churches.