The Old School House is a Grade II listed building in the Three Rivers local planning authority area, England. First listed on 7 August 1973. Former school, offices. 1 related planning application.

The Old School House

WRENN ID
cold-hearth-thyme
Grade
II
Local Planning Authority
Three Rivers
Constituency
South West Hertfordshire MP: Mr Gagan Mohindra (Con)
Country
England
Date first listed
7 August 1973
Type
Former school, offices
Address
The Old School House, Bridge Road, Abbots Langley
OS grid reference
TL 081 005
Coordinates
51.69357, -0.43707
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: related consents · flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The Old School House is a former school building, now used as offices, constructed in 1858 with funding from W.J. Loyd of Langleybury House. It was altered and converted in 1974. The building features knapped flint with red brick dressings and has a decoratively tiled roof, designed in the Gothic Revival style. It consists of a one-storey hall with an inserted attic at the front and a two-storey house at the rear, arranged in six bays.

The entrance is located to the right of the center, set within a steeply gabled porch that contains a pointed arched door. The building has a brick plinth and quoins, with bargeboards that include king posts from the collar, pierced trefoils, and a finial. Small lights are present in the returns. To the right, there are two 2-light casement windows with angled heads and chamfered brick surrounds featuring shallow pointed heads. To the left, there is a similar 3-light window, followed by two 2-light windows. Above the outer bays, there are two 20th-century paired gabled dormers that follow the original design details, along with ridge tiles.

On the ridge to the left, a triangular bellcote with a cusped base and spirelet, topped with a weathervane, is present. The gable ends have large 3-light mullion and transom windows set in pointed arches, adorned with tiled tympana and bargeboards featuring king posts from collars. At the rear left, there is a link block that extends, which includes a ground floor 2-bay open fronted lean-to and a gambrel roof with an original 3-light hipped dormer. Two cross axial ridge stacks with panelled shafts and oversailing caps are also present.

The rear of the building includes the former schoolmaster's house, which has a projecting gable end to the left, a ground floor canted bay, and a first-floor 2-light casement with plain bargeboards. The left bay at the rear gables projects slightly and contains 2 and 3-light casements. The interior was not inspected, and there are 20th-century additions at the rear that are not of special interest.

Local climate

The Old School House sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 710 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 86% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 85% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 31 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 61% of listed buildings. Of these, 15 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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  • No EPC on record for this property
  • No sale records on file
  • Related listed building consents — 1 application
  • Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
  • Flood risk assessment
  • Radon risk assessment
  • Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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