Rickinghall Voluntary Controlled Primary School

This is a school building, constructed in 1853 as the Rickinghall National School, and accompanied by a schoolmaster’s house. It was built at a cost of £700. The school is built of knapped flint with red brick dressings, featuring steeply pitched fishscale patterned tiled roofs. The design is in a Gothic style, comprising a large, single-storey schoolroom with a two-storey schoolmaster’s house attached to the right. An entrance to the schoolroom is located to the right, set within a low, projecting gabled porch. This porch contains a boarded, strap-hinged door within a chamfered, gauged brick pointed arch, and has moulded kneelers to its parapet. Small return buttresses flank pointed arched windows. The schoolroom's left side features three tall, paired lancet windows that break the eaves, with chamfered, gauged brick pointed arch heads and intermediate buttresses. Three gables with kneelers rise to the parapets and a datestone with a pointed head sits in the middle gable. A small, octagonal timber bellcote with pointed arched openings is positioned centrally on the ridge, topped with a leaded spire finial and weathervane. To the far left, a lower bay projects forward with a gable, three lancet windows (the central one taller), a parapet, and buttresses to its returns. The left gable end has triple lancet windows, the central one taller, and a parapet. To the right of the entrance, a slightly taller section projects forward, displaying a gable fronted bay with paired lancet windows (the taller ones on the first floor), casement windows, a blind slit window in the attic, and kneelers to a coped parapet. A cross axial stack rises on the ridge where the house meets the schoolroom, possessing offsets to an oversailing cap. To the right of this, a further bay extends at a right angle with a cross axial ridge stack. A lean-to is situated at the front inner angle, featuring a pointed arched door, a buttress, and a parapet. The right gable end has a projecting, four-light bay window on the ground floor and paired lancet windows on the first floor, both with a parapet. A cross-gabled bay is visible to the rear, constructed from flint rubble. A lean-to is situated behind the right bay. The rear of the schoolroom incorporates a gabled dormer and plain red brick additions; one extending to the left, incorporating triple lancets in its left gable end. The interior of the building was not inspected.