Cawston College

Cawston College is a country house dating to 1896, designed by Sir Ernest George and Alfred Yeates for George Cawston. It was later converted to a public school in 1964. The building is constructed of red brick with stone dressings, featuring tile roofs with stone coped gables and finials. Brick ornamental ridge and side stacks incorporate double, triple, and quadruple flues. The architectural style is restrained Tudor, characterized by stone mullioned windows throughout.

The house has a U-plan, comprising a principal south block flanked by two north service wings. It is predominantly two storeys high. The entrance front is a carefully considered, long and low asymmetrical composition, featuring four three-light windows to the first floor, a projecting stack to the left, a two-storey square bay to the right, and a large projecting gabled porch with a stack and a facing gable to the far right. Additional ground-floor windows are set above a high plinth and a string course. The porch’s entrance has an ornamental door case and a pedimented tablet above. The left gable end possesses further windows, and another wing completes the U-plan on the opposite side of the courtyard to the rear.

The south front is also two storeys high, with a six-window range and is nearly symmetrical, incorporating two full-height polygonal bay windows. A plinth of chequered brick and flint is set off by a stone band. A moulded stone string course runs at first floor level, beneath a moulded stone cornice, and below a plain parapet. A door is centrally positioned on the right side, with a moulded stone door case. Ground-floor windows feature transoms, including those in the canted bays, set in stone architraves. First-floor windows lack transoms. Later extensions have been added to the far right, extending in front of a further wing and beyond that.

The interior was not inspected. Sale particulars from 2002 mentioned heavily beamed ceilings and low relief plasterwork. This is a finely detailed country house designed by a prominent architectural practice of the period.