The Old School House

The Old School House is a former school and schoolhouse, now a house, dating from the late 16th century, possibly incorporating earlier elements. It was re-modelled and extended in the mid 18th century and again in the late 19th to early 20th centuries. The building is constructed of limestone rubble with wooden lintels, brick, and has concrete plain-tile and Welsh-slate roofs with stone and brick stacks.

It features a 3-unit lobby-entry plan with later additions and a schoolroom wing at the rear. The structure has two storeys plus an attic, with a three-window front that includes casements of two, three, and three lights on both floors. The entrance is located between the second and third bays, and there are signs of early alterations, including a blocked doorway in the first bay. Both gables have brick stacks, and the ridge stack, aligned with the entrance, has two rebuilt diagonal brick shafts on a rubble base.

The schoolroom wing extends from the right end and has mostly large 19th-century stone-mullioned windows, but retains part of an ovolo-moulded frame in a small window on the former first floor. The shallow-pitched slate roof features a central ventilator with a weathervane. A lower 19th-century wing projects to the right and includes a wooden bellcote. There is also a 19th to early 20th-century range that partly fills the angle, constructed in brick over a rubble ground floor.

Inside, the schoolroom contains a seven-light wooden ovolo-moulded mullioned-and-transomed window, now positioned internally. The house range features a large open fireplace with a stop-chamfered cambered bressumer, along with some stop-chamfered spine and lateral beams. It also includes an 18th-century display cupboard with serpentine shelves, a winder stair, and an 18th-century roof with queen-post trusses. The school was founded in 1580 by Thomas Fermor and may have incorporated parts of the castle chapel, which is reputed to have been located on this site.