Former Great Cressingham school, with separate toilet block and boundary wall

Former school built in 1840, extended around 1890 with a late 19th-early 20th century porch and toilet block added, now used as a Victorian school museum.

The school is built in flint rubble with gault-brick dressings and chimney stacks, beneath a slate roof with clay ridge tiles. Two metal ventilators sit on the ridge, one at each end. The porch is timber-framed on a brick plinth with a slate roof, while the historic rear extension is built entirely in gault-brick, also with a slate roof. The detached toilet block to the rear is constructed in red brick with flint rubble panels and has a single pitch corrugated metal roof. Both the school and toilet block are rectangular in plan.

The school boundary wall runs along the north side of The Street, around the west side of the school and playground, and along the east side of the adjacent field. It is constructed of flint rubble with moulded stone coping and is punctuated with gault-brick gate piers providing access to the school yard.

The original school is a five-bay single storey building of simple rectangular form with a projecting porch to the east elevation and a rectangular extension to the northeast corner. Built in flint rubble with gault-brick quoins, jambs, stepped eaves and window detailing reflecting local vernacular architecture, it is distinguished by two tall octagonal chimney stacks—one on the ridge and the other adjacent to the eastern extension.

The principal east elevation is dominated by the timber porch, which occupies the second bay beneath a slated pitched roof with simply carved bargeboards. A single door provides access. The fenestration is timber-framed throughout with varying arrangements: to the east elevation right of the porch are vertically aligned six-pane fixed lights; to the left of the porch is a three-over-three arrangement with a central hopper to the lower row. The west elevation has either four-over-two or six-over-three top-hinged casements. A pair of nine-over-three lights with the lower three being hoppers flank the central stack in the southern gable. Above these, within the apex, is a carved stone inscription reading "THIS SCHOOL / For the Instruction / of the Poor / was Built / 1840".

The northern gable contains a plank and batten door providing back entrance to the school room, with a multi-paned hopper window positioned centrally to the right of the door. The northeast extension features another plank and batten door with rectangular overlight in the north elevation, and three-over-three horned sashes in both the north elevation and east gable. A small contemporary lean-to provides external storage.

The toilet block stands just north of the school building. This single storey, three-bay structure of red brick and flint rubble has three timber plank and batten doors with rectangular overlights, labelled "SCHOOL MISTRESS" (left), "GIRLS" (centre) and "BOYS" (right). A similar door in the eastern gable provides access to a storage area. The building was re-roofed in corrugated metal sheeting in the early 21st century.

Internally, the school comprises three rooms: the main school room, which can be subdivided by an original folding timber-panelled half-glazed partition; a narrow cloak room at the northern end created by insertion of a half-panelled and half-glazed stud wall across a window on the west elevation, indicating later insertion; and a small kitchen area within the extension. The porch lobby contains a pair of four-panel timber doors within a single frame, one marked "BOYS" and the other "GIRLS", providing access to the main school room. The roof space was inaccessible during survey, and an inserted ceiling partially obscures the roof structure, but the exposed lower reaches of principal rafters, collars and purlins testify to its survival. The interior of the toilet block was not accessed, but the WC fixtures and fittings are understood to survive.