The Old School is a Grade II listed building in the Wokingham local planning authority area, England. First listed on 30 June 1993. School. 6 related planning applications.
The Old School
- WRENN ID
- lost-bronze-holly
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Wokingham
- Constituency
- Wokingham MP: Clive Jones (LD)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 30 June 1993
- Type
- School
- Address
- The Old School, Polehampton Close, Twyford
- OS grid reference
- SU 786 759
- Coordinates
- 51.47726, -0.86874
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Old School is a former school building constructed around 1887 by The Polehampton Trust. It is made of grey Reading brick, featuring red Reading brick pilasters, strips, panels, cornices, and dressings around the windows, chimneys, and gables. The building has tiled roofs with segmental and triangular pedimented Flemish gables topped with terracotta ball finials. A tall, enriched brick chimney stack is prominent on the main elevation. Designed in the Queen Anne style, the school has an open courtyard plan with an eastern projection and is a single storey.
The main facade includes a plain entrance within a gabled lower wing, which is partly timber framed and has four lights with glazing bars under a tile-hung gable that features a vertically set window. The main windows are tall sashes with glazing bars, equipped with gauged brick segmental heads and keystones, while the western-facing gable windows are of Venetian type. The building also showcases well-detailed terracotta airbricks and includes a metal bootscraper and rosette rainwater pipe brackets.
Inside, the school retains original features, including open timber roof trusses. This school was built on the site of a demolished chapel of a school founded in 1721 by Edward Polehampton for the education of ten poor boys from Twyford. The master's house still exists nearby, and this school serves as a replacement for the original school room, which was exclusively for boys; a girls' and infants' school was constructed the following year in the village.
Local climate
The Old School sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 720 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 81% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 77% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 34 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 50% of listed buildings. Of these, 14 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- Related listed building consents — 6 applications
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.
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