Former Swafield School and boundary walls

Former Swafield School and boundary walls

A small school built in 1852 and extended in the late 19th century, constructed in a simplified Tudor style. The building is a single-storey, five-bay structure under a pitched roof with exposed rafters at the eaves and decorative bargeboards.

The walls are built of small, closely laid, uncoarsed flint nodules with buff brick dressings and a slate roof. The school features blocked brick quoins and brick banding just above the flint plinth. The rectangular plan includes two entrance porches on the south side and an outshut at the east end of the north elevation, with the original schoolroom occupying the east side and a later infants' room the west side.

From left to right, the first bay contains a gabled entrance porch with decorative bargeboards and a finial that drops below the apex. The door is set in a blocked brick four-centred arch surround and has narrow vertical planks with applied fillets. It is lit by a small single-pane window on the right return, which has a surround of chamfered blocked brick and a hoodmould, as do all the windows. The window on the left return has been blocked up with flint in the 1980s. The second, third and fifth bays are lit by four-light windows, the upper lights of which open. The fourth bay contains a slightly larger entrance porch of similar design, with a louvred bellcote topped by a pyramid roof and an intact bell. This door has four vertical planks with applied fillets and both its windows remain in use.

The east gable end, facing onto the road, is lit by a large nine-light window with two opening lights. A pierced stone trefoil opening in the gable head is set in a blocked brick surround. Below the window is a stone plaque inscribed 'SWAFIELD NATIONAL SCHOOL MDCCCLII'. The west gable end is similar but has a smaller window and a wooden trefoil. The north (rear) elevation is blind except for an outshut on the left with bargeboards. The return walls feature blocked brick surrounds and segmental arch heads belonging to original doors, now blocked with flint in the 1980s and pierced by single-light 20th-century windows.

Internally, both the former schoolroom and infants' room have canted ceilings with the lower half of the rafters exposed. The party wall between the rooms has a wide opening but has lost its sliding partition or doors. Some matchboard dado panelling remains, as does the fireplace in the infants' room, though it has been boarded over. The schoolroom has narrow floorboards while the infants' room floor has been concreted. The east porch has a brick-lined floor, and the four-centred arch doors to both porches, set in chamfered brick surrounds, have applied fillets and latches. A plank and batten door with thin strap hinges leads from the east room to the outshut.

The plot is bounded by flint walls along the north and east sides with segmental coping; that on the north wall has been recently replaced in 2014. The east wall ramps up at the northern end. The south and west sides have iron railings, probably dating to the late 19th century when the school was extended.