Park House

Park House is a large house, now used as a school, with origins dating back to the 17th century. It was significantly extended and altered in the early 19th century for the Harrison family. The front section is constructed of yellow brick, while earlier rear sections exhibit timber framing, largely concealed behind whitewashed brick and roughcast rendering. The front has a shallow hipped slate roof, while the rear wings have steeper, glazed pantiled roofs.

The early 19th-century block is parallel to an earlier range to its rear, and a further wing extends at a right angle to form a ‘T’ shaped plan. The house is two storeys high with attics in the rear wings. The five-bay front facade breaks forward slightly in the centre. A raised plinth is present. The central entrance features a glazed door with a traceried rectangular fanlight, raised fielded fluted metopes with rosettes on mutules, and a balcony with deep reveal. A semi-circular tetrastyle Roman Doric portico, featuring acanthus necking to the columns and circle patterned wrought iron railings, provides access. Above the porch, a large tripartite French window with glazing bars and fluted colonettes acting as mullions is situated on the first floor, opening onto the balcony. This window has a traceried segmental light within a gauged brick segmental arched reveal. Originally sashed windows in the outer bays have been replaced with 20th-century aluminium framed windows set within gauged brick flat arched heads, and stone sills. A continuous mutuled eaves cornice with a coped blocking course runs along the centre.

Cross axial stacks are located to the rear centre and ends. A parallel range to the rear, of similar dimensions, features a mix of sash and casement windows on two-bay returns. It also has a mutuled eaves cornice. Large white brick stacks are visible at the ends of a gambrel roof. A long, five-bay range extends further to the rear. The right return includes a lean-to outshut with entrances, 19th- and 20th-century casements, cambered heads to the ground-floor windows, dormers, and a ridge stack where two forward bays meet three brick-faced rear bays. The roof is hipped toward the front. The rear gable end has brick kneelers to a brick parapet with tumbled-in brickwork.

The interior has been extensively altered and includes a butt purlin roof with cambered collars in the rear wing. A lean-to outbuilding is located to the rear of the middle block, behind a 19th-century red brick link wall approximately 15 metres long and 2 metres high; it has segmental headed openings, one of which is blocked, and a dentilled course to the rounded brick coping. Originally, Park House was known as St. John's, named after a church that was demolished in the 16th century.