Ladbrooke School And Forecourt Wall

Ladbroke School, built between 1861 and 1862, is a school house constructed from stock brick with red and white brick and stone dressings, topped with a green and blue slate roof. The building has a T-shaped plan, featuring a two-storey house on the left and a one-storey school room in the main range, designed in a polychrome Gothic style.

The front of the building includes a gabled entrance porch located at the angle of the main range and a projecting wing. The entrance features a pointed arch with a stop-chamfered surround and a decorative timber door. Small buttresses support the porch. The school room has two bays, with two lancet windows that have trefoiled heads and stone sills under a gable on the right side, and three similar lights on the left, the center one being taller, all under a larger gable. The house section has a slightly higher ridge, with a three-light rectangular bay on the ground floor and a two-light glazing bar casement on the first floor beneath a polychrome brick relieving arch. The front walls display red brick diapering, and all gables feature prominent and varied cusped or trefoiled ornamental bargeboards. The steeply pitched roof is adorned with slates arranged in decorative stripes, and a small timber bell-cote with a fleche is centered on the ridge. A small stone ridge stack is located on the right gable end wall, which also has three lancets with similar detailing as the front, recessed in a chamfered white brick round relieving arch. The left return wall has a central entrance with a small gable above, a two-light casement to the left, and a corbelled stack to the right.

The forecourt wall attached to the left of the school features a plinth, chamfered stone coping that steps up at intervals, and brick diapering. It has pyramidal heads on two sets of piers and an original timber and iron gate to the right. At the rear, the building is linked to a large 20th-century extension that is not of special interest.