The Grammar School

The Grammar School

A Grade I listed building of exceptional historical importance, the Grammar School stands on the south side of Guildford High Street. The complex was built in phases: the first range to the south (rear) dates to 1557, the west wing to 1569, the east wing begun in 1571 with floors and stairs completed by 1581, windows inserted in 1582, and the north wing (front range) finished in 1586. The buildings were remodelled in 1889, the south wing refurbished following a fire in 1965.

The school was founded under a bequest left by Robert Beckingham in 1512, and the buildings were sponsored by John Austen and William Hamonde, two trustees. The first charter for the Free Grammar School of King Edward was granted in January 1552/3.

The complex is arranged on a quadrangular plan around a central courtyard measuring 29 feet 3 inches by 36 feet. It is constructed of brick with flint panels and clunch dressings on the rear wings, with rubble stone on the remainder, limewashed on the street front. Stone roofs complete the exterior. A timber-framed gallery crosses the rear of the front range.

The entrance front presents three storeys with attics, with a lower two-storey gate lodge to the left and the remainder at two storeys with attics. The most prominent features are diagonal angle buttresses to the ends rising through three storeys with offsets, and plain buttresses either side of the centre. Three gables punctuate the front, each topped with a spherical finial and containing two arched-light attic windows in chamfered surrounds with label mouldings. The outer gables display paired two-arched-light leaded casements in common chamfered surrounds with labels above.

The central section features six round-arched mullioned and transomed leaded casement windows under a label moulding on the second floor. Below these sits a square panel bearing the coat of arms within a guilloche band, and beneath that a panel reading "SCHOLA REGIA GRAMMATICALIS EDVARDI SEXTI 1552". The central entrance is a central oak-panelled door with studs and a shell-pattern arched top panel, approached up a small flight of steps with a chamfered surround and label moulding above. A blocked first-floor window and a simpler panelled door appear in the left-hand gateway. The left and right return fronts show irregular leaded casement fenestration, with larger mullioned and transomed arched-head casements on the gable ends of the rear wing.

The south elevation (garden front) features decorative tile and stone quoining and patterning, with seven gabled casement dormers of two arched lights in the roof. Three 3-light mullioned casements appear across the first floor with four below. A 19th-century canted bay at the left end has leaded windows on the first floor with casement doors in flanking lights below and tile hanging between. A mullioned and transomed window occupies the ground floor left of centre, with a pointed-arched recess to the centre under the stack containing an arched doorway in a chamfered surround.

The courtyard features a timber-framed gallery to the rear of the front range with exposed timbers on pedestalled posts. Stone-dressed arched-head windows appear in the side wings with gabled dormers above, two windows with ogee-moulded jambs on the gallery, and a pedimented entrance at the centre of the south range.

Decorative stacks with paired shafts on a common offset plinth are prominent to the left, with multiple stacks to the right. Offset stone and brick stacks appear on the side wings and three stacks across the rear wing.

The interiors, badly damaged by fire in the south wing but reinstated, originally comprised two long rooms 65 feet long by 22 feet wide. The Big School retains a queen post roof with painted texts on the beams, butt-purlins, and dado panelling on the walls. The Austin Room contains panelling, and the front range houses a fine chained library. Some chalk fireplaces survive in the headmaster's lodgings and schoolrooms, notably in the Big School, which features a Decorated-style panel above its fireplace.

The building represents an important historical landmark in the upper part of Guildford High Street.