St Michaels Close Flats 1-11 (Consecutive)

A building now containing 11 flats, originally premises of the King Edward VI Grammar School from 1664 to 1883 and subsequently a girls’ boarding school conducted by Anglican nuns until 1939. The building dates largely to the 17th century, with alterations and additions in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is timber-framed and rendered in panels, with a raised stucco band between the storeys. The roof is hipped and covered in plaintiles, featuring a wide moulded eaves soffit.

The building has an L-shaped plan, with a wing projecting west at the south end. The front is divided into two distinct sections. The north side has a range of seven 2-light casement windows with square leaded panes in cast-iron frames to the upper storey; some of these are original with a single small opening casement, and one retains arched cusped heads to the lights, while the others are replacements in a cross form. Six cross windows were inserted around 1945 when the building was converted to flats on the ground storey, replacing earlier windows set at a higher level. A central 6-panel door, with the four top panels glazed, is set within a wood doorcase featuring a flat cornice hood supported by shaped and moulded consoles. Above the door is a rectangular plaque bearing an abbreviated Latin inscription detailing the transfer of the Grammar School to the building in 1664. Above the plaque is an empty semicircular niche with a moulded architrave, keystone, and impost blocks, formerly containing a bust of King Edward VI.

The south end, added in the 18th century, has a four-window range of 12-pane sashes in flush cased frames. A pair of half-glazed Edwardian doors are set within a heavy Ionic porch with columns in antis. A 19th-century cast-iron balcony is positioned above the porch. The south face of the rear wing features sash windows to the upper storey and two heavy late 19th-century canted brick bays with flat roofs and parapets to the ground storey. Seven hipped dormers are spaced across the east front, and four across the south front, all with 2-light cast-iron casements with square leaded panes. A recessed two-storey 19th-century block, rendered with a slate roof and small-paned sash windows, overlaps the back of the main building.

The original 17th-century north range contained the large schoolroom of the Grammar School, spanning four bays with a high ceiling at the level of the raised band along the front. Five open trusses have ovolo-moulded main beams and heavy supporting arched braces resting on moulded stone corbels. This ceiling is now hidden above lower 20th-century ceilings, and the schoolroom area is divided by 20th-century partitions. The entrance hall, paved with limestone flags, has a late Victorian/Edwardian staircase in Cuban mahogany, in an ornate 18th-century style. This replaced an earlier staircase during repairs in the 1960s and was originally from the Jockey Club in London.