Gamlingay First School And No 10 Adjoining

GAMLINGAY

TL2352 HALL GREEN END 1630/11/10005 Gamlingay First School 01-DEC-00 and adjoining No. 10

II

School and attached former schoolmaster's house. 1874 with later additions and alterations. House probably c.1880. Gault brick with stone and red and blue brick dressings. C20 tile roof with stone coped gables. Muscular High Victorian style with decorative polychrome brick and stonework. School is single-storey with 2-storey tower. Long main range with wings to rear. Main facade has a symmetrical 3-window section either side a central tower. Paired and triple 1/1 sashes with Caernarvon arched heads under stone lintels. Each section has a central gable projecting forward with a simple plate tracery rose window above the triple sash. The central tower which projects further forward has stepped angle and front buttresses and two doorways with decorative jambs, over-light and plank doors. Above is a 4-light stone mullioned window with simple Perpendicular tracery. Two octagonal caps to corners above this. Left gable end has similar triple sash window. Right end has No.10, the former schoolmaster's house, adjoining (see below) though there is a triple window to the school in the internal yard between the two ranges. Rear of school has single-storey wings with similar detailing and windows though with some alterations. INTERIOR of school. Central entrance has, like elsewhere in school, fine doorways and doors with moulded stiles and rails and planked panels. Central straight flight stair to the tower room. Open boarded roof has moulded collars and king-posts above. Tower room has coloured glass to upper lights of window. Two large class rooms either side of entrance have lowered ceilings but original open roofs survive and the lower parts of braces are visible rising from moulded stone corbels. No.10. Similar materials with simplified polychrome brick decoration on all sides. 2 storeys. 5-window range in all at first floor with projecting 3-window canted bay to left and 2 windows to centre and right over central moulded wooden porch (boarded at present) and slightly projecting ground floor window. Windows are 1/1 sashes visible from inside though boarded externally at present. Gable end has paired sash with blank paired window over and blank narrow window in attic. Wing to rear has windows to side and gable end with blank windows. Similar windows or blank windows in internal yard. Small further single-storey and 2-storey wings. INTERIOR. Staircase with stick balustrade and moulded newels. 4-panel doors. Fireplaces removed except for that in kitchen with plain high surround. In spite of the loss of the upper part of the tower many years ago, the school and house remain otherwise little altered. Not only is the school fine architecturally but it is a early example of a school erected by a School Board in a rural area following the Education Act of 1870.

Listing NGR: TL2363952372