Bedgebury Lower School, Collingwood House, And Wall Attached

This is a mid-18th century house, altered in the early 19th century, and now serving as a school. It is constructed of red brick with stone dressings and slate roofs. The design is fundamentally Palladian, with later Neo-Classical alterations and details.

The main block is three stories high with a basement, featuring a stone plat band and cornice to a parapet. Chimneys are located to the left. The second floor has three half-sized sash windows, while the first floor has three full-sized windows, all with moulded stone surrounds. The central window on the first floor is pedimented, and the outer windows have stone aprons. The ground floor features segmentally headed tripartite sash windows in enriched and bracketed surrounds. A double half-glazed door is set within a Doric porch, originally open, with a fanlight and sidelights. A railed basement area is present. A single-storey extension to the left has a hipped roof, a plinth, a discontinuous plat band, a parapet, and two recessed round-headed sash windows, with an apsidal end wall. A two-storey and basement wing projects to the right, with a parapet and chimneys. This wing has three glazing-bar sashes on each floor, with half-sized windows on the first floor, set within moulded surrounds. The rear elevation has seven glazing-bar sashes on each floor and a canted bay window on the ground floor.

The interior features a geometrical main staircase with stick balusters on scrolled treads, a wreathed handrail, flanking niches, and a top-lit well. The entrance hall has a plaster barrel-vaulted ceiling with an Ionic screen to a corridor. An apsidal room contains a traceried rose window and fanlight over an exterior door. Another ground floor room has a heavily beamed and coffered Neo-Classical ceiling. A back staircase has turned newels, a ramped rail with a flying dogleg over a passageway.

The house was purchased by Sir John Herschel in 1840, who died there in 1871. He was a noted astronomer, President of the Royal Astronomical Society, Master of the Mint in 1850, and a pioneer of photography (coining the terms "positive" and "negative").

Attached to the end on the right is a red brick wall, approximately 10 feet high and projecting about 30 yards in a double curve to the northwest.