Sunnybrook (formerly The School House)

Sunnybrook, a detached house formerly known as The School House, dates to the late 1850s and was built as a school for the village under the patronage of John Hopkins Esq. of Tidmarsh House. The building has undergone mid-20th-century additions and alterations. The architect is unknown.

The structure is constructed from red brick with vitrified brick diaper work decoration and stone dressings, with tiled roofs. A carved stone plaque depicting the Hopkins coat of arms is displayed on the exterior.

The building is a two-storey detached house with a pitched roof and large porch to the north. Originally a single-storey school hall, an upper floor was inserted following conversion to a dwelling in the mid-20th century. Attached outbuildings to the south-east date to the 1940s, and a subterranean air-raid shelter lies to the east. A single-storey extension to the north-east combines historic fabric with a 1960s bathroom addition. A 1960s bay window was added to the south.

The main west elevation faces The Street, the main road through the village. It features a central dormer with decorative barge boards above the carved stone arms of the Hopkins family. Windows are stone mullions with leaded lights. The vitrified brick diaper work decorates both the main elevation and the north and south gables. The roof is tiled in stripes of fish scale and squared tiles, as is the porch roof, while the rear slope of the main roof is in plain tiles. The north elevation is dominated by a decorative timber-framed porch glazed with herringbone brick nogging. The north gable first-floor window is not original; the south gable has a 1970s steel casement to the first floor and a 1960s brick bay window to the ground floor. A rear central projecting chimney stack with two diagonal pots is present. The attached outbuildings to the south-east (a workshop and bicycle shed) and the partly subterranean air-raid shelter to the east are not of special interest.

Interior access is via a late 20th-century door inserted into the porch, leading to an L-shaped kitchen in the northern part of the building. A substantial timber door surround to the south of the hall is probably the original entrance to the school hall. The ground floor comprises an L-shaped kitchen to the north and a bathroom extension, a central dining room (now a bedroom), and a large living room to the south with an early 1960s fireplace and bay window. Stairs ascend the west wall to the first floor, where there are three bedrooms and exposed simple roof trusses from the original school hall.

The building is believed to date to the late 1850s. Historic maps from the late 19th and early 20th centuries show it as a 'School (Boys & Girls)' on the first edition of 1879, 'School' in 1899, and 'Sunday School' in 1912. The school proper closed in approximately 1905. The building was sold in May 1937, when it was described as 'The Village Club Room: a substantial building of brick with a tiled roof approached through an entrance porch which admits to a large hall with a trussed roof, leaded glass windows and tiled floor. Adjoining are an outside coalhouse and E.C. [earth closet] with a good area of ground.' The coalhouse and earth closet are now part of the kitchen. Following this sale, the former school was converted into a dwelling with an upper floor inserted. The subterranean air-raid shelter dates to the Second World War, and the attached outbuildings are understood to be 1940s in date. Subsequent additions and alterations were made in the 1960s and 1970s. All 20th-century additions and interiors are not of special interest.