St Mary'S School

WANTAGE NEWBURY STREET SU3987 (East side) 7/136 St. Mary's School 22/04/50

GV II

Town house, now school. c.1730, second storey added and extended to right and left in late C19; dormitory wing by Butterfield 1874. Flared Flemish bond brick with red brick quoins and dressings; old tile roof; brick stacks. Central staircase plan. Early Georgian style. Originally 2 storeys, now 3 storeys; 5-window range, with pedimented central bay. Gauged brick pediment with Doric entablature and pilasters to 6-panelled door. Gauged brick cambered arches over 2 cellar windows and C18 sashes with half-H aprons. Red brick storey band and dentilled and moulded eaves. Roughcast late C19 second storey has sashes and bracketed cornice over central bay which has lunette flanked by double pilaster strips. Gabled roof; end stacks. Two late C19 bays in similar style to right of front. Rear rebuilt and extended in late C19 with lean-to roof over passage with Diocletian windows leading to chapel (q.v.). Interior: Some C18 two-panelled doors and panelled shutters. Panelled room and fine fireplace to right. Central dog-leg stairs have fluted column-on-vase balusters on open string banisters ramped to fluted newel posts, elaborate carved brackets; panelled dado with fluted pilasters. First floor has panelled rooms to centre and left, latter with fine fireplace. Subsidiary features: 2-storey dormitory wing by Butterfield, 1874, with attic storey added c.1890-1900, of red brick with yellow brick diaper work between ground- and first-floor windows, offset buttresses, limestone ashlar bands at window sill and impost levels; rendered mock timber-framing to first floor; one-light cusped windows in 13-window ground-floor range and narrow first-floor sashes; club tile hung gables of second floor have sashes. Similar style block to rear left. (Buildings of England: Berkshire, p.254; Paul Thompson, William Butterfield, 1971, pp,396,435),

Listing NGR: SU3986487721