Widford Jmi School

The building is a school, dating from 1875-6, likely designed by G E Pritchett of Bishops Stortford. It is constructed of grey brick with polychrome brick dressings, terra-cotta decorative window arches, and steep gabled roofs covered in contrasting bands of slate. The school is a tall, Gothic-style single-story Local Board School, with two gabled porches and a two-story crosswing at the west end, which served as the School House. The design is asymmetrical, with two tall projecting chimneys on the front wall, featuring tumbled offsets and heavy, corbelled caps. Two large, three-light sash windows flank the western chimney stack, each having panelled terracotta voussoirs and keystones over a floral motif. Steep slate sills rest on a continuous red brick moulded string, and a chamfered plinth runs along the base. The string and plinth continue around the two porches, which have red and white brick flat arches over three-light casement windows, also with slate sills. The porches have heavy plank doors, decorative hinge plates, and polychrome pointed brick arches. Bargeboards with pendant and diamond-cut ends to the purlins and wall plates are found on the porches, the house, and the east gable of the school. The east gable also features an arrow wind vane and a high window with a terra-cotta decorated arch. The roofs are decorated with broad bands of green and grey slates. The crosswing's gable projects beyond the west porch and has the red brick string at upper floor level stepped up over the central window. Two-light recessed sash windows with slate sills and depressed, pointed polychrome brick arches are also present. A gabled, two-story projection on the west side of the house has an entrance under a steep, bracketed canopy. The rear wall of the school has pilastered, toothed eaves courses and three-light windows. A bracketed slate canopy supports a school bell on the east gable above a window. A one-story, modern extension to the east is not of special interest. Following the 1870 Education Act, the previous, smaller school (dating from 1829) was deemed “altogether unsuitable,” leading the Rector, Rev. Henry Hamond, and an elected local school board to build this school for 110 children. The "Board School" later became a Council School in 1902. This is a vigorous, polychrome brick and slate Gothic Board School of 1875-6, of special architectural and historic interest, and forms part of a group with a now-Church Room, located within the village Conservation Area.