Layston Court

Layston Court is a building of two phases, originally a grammar school with a master’s house, now a single house. The school was built between 1630 and 1633 for Elizabeth Freeman of Aspenden Hall and was later re-endowed in 1684 by Bishop Seth Ward and Lady Jane Barkham. An early 18th-century house was added at right angles. The school was used as such until 1877, and the building has been altered subsequently, with a southern wing added in the 20th century.

The school building is of red brick in English bond, with stone windows and a steep roof covered in old red tiles. The master’s house is timber-framed and plastered, with a hipped roof covered in old red tiles, and the southern wing is stuccoed. The school is a large rectangular brick structure facing west, featuring moulded gable parapets and unusual projecting gable chimneys with short, octagonal shafts linked by a heavy capping. It has a chamfered plinth and a tall, single-storey front with deep eaves, transomed ovolo-moulded windows, and a fine, brick-pedimented, rusticated, round-arched central entrance. The oak roof structure internally includes hollow-chamfered tie beams supported by curved braces from hollow-chamfered wallposts, and butt-purlin rafters with collar-trusses. Scratch-moulded panelling in the north bay of three may indicate the original master's accommodation, which, according to the 1633 will, was under one roof with the school room for 25 boys. An attic floor was inserted with large gabled dormer windows before 1830. An early 20th-century lean-to porch now covers the pedimented entrance, with a bay window to the right; the brickwork of the front has been plastered over. The rear of the building is less altered, although the stone, transomed ovolo-moulded windows may have replaced earlier plastered brick windows noted in the Victoria County History around 1914.

The early 18th-century master’s house is two storeys high, with four windows wide, featuring flush box sash windows of 6/6 panes, taller on the ground floor. It has a tall, Doric pilastered wooden doorcase with fluted pilasters and a keystone beneath a triglyph frieze and panelled hood. The door leads into a lofty ground-floor room, which may have been a former schoolroom.