Grundisburgh County Primary School

Grundisburgh County Primary School is a school building dating from approximately 1874. It is constructed of red brick with decorative bands of blue brick, and has a steeply pitched Welsh slate roof with gilded detailing and half-hipped ends. Brick lateral stacks are located at the rear, and a larger truncated stack is situated at the right-hand end. The building comprises a range of school rooms with projecting cross-wings at either end to the front, and a central wing projecting to the rear. Attached at the south-west end, and set back, is the contemporary schoolmaster’s house, in an L-shaped plan.

The school is single-storied, while the schoolmaster’s house is two-storied. The school front is asymmetrical, with five bays between the end wings. The left-hand wing has two gables of unequal size, featuring large pointed arch windows. The right-hand gable has two lancet windows above which is a bullseye window with diamond panes. The end gables have curved barge boards with pierced circular and leaf motifs. The large central gable has buttresses, two large lancet windows, and a band of blue bricks in the arches, a relieving arch of alternating blue bricks, and a bullseye in the tympanum with a Star of David pattern of glazing bars. The five bays between the gables have narrow, square lead windows. Above the central gable, at the intersection with the main roof, is a square wooden bellcote with a battered slate base and louvres, surmounted by a lead-clad spire and a decorative wrought-iron weathervane. The recesses in the inner angles of the projecting end cross-wings have been extended, but the original two-centred arch doorways remain.

The two-storied schoolmaster’s house, set back to the left, has a gabled L-shaped plan and features depressed two-centred arch windows. A later brick extension to the first floor in the right-hand angle forms a porch below. Bands of blue brick and a stringcourse of diagonally cogged bricks run around the exterior.

A front wall (southeast side), likely contemporary with the school, encloses the playground. This red brick wall incorporates a battered base acting as a retaining wall, with pierced diagonal brickwork panels and semi-circular coping. Two gateways are recessed diagonally, with short flights of steps and brick gate-piers.

The interior of the school has not been inspected.