The Park Preparatory School is a Grade II listed building in the Bath and North East Somerset local planning authority area, England. First listed on 5 August 1975. School. 5 related planning applications.
The Park Preparatory School
- WRENN ID
- under-tower-pearl
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Bath and North East Somerset
- Constituency
- Bath MP: Wera Hobhouse (LD)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 5 August 1975
- Type
- School
- Address
- The Park Preparatory School, King Edwards Pre-Prep School, Weston Lane, Lower Weston, BA1 4AQ
- OS grid reference
- ST 733 657
- Coordinates
- 51.39049, -2.38383
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
This is a former detached house, dating from around 1840, now part of a school. Constructed of limestone ashlar with a complex slate roof and tall, octagonal chimneys with moulded cornices. The building is arranged with a double-depth plan and is designed in a Tudor Gothic style.
The two-and-three-storey, three-bay front features a moulded parapet and string course rising over two forward-facing, shouldered gables to the right and returns. The windows are set in flat-arched recesses with sunk spandrels and four-centred arched heads. The two-storey gable to the right has a single-shafted chimney as a finial, and a label mould above a three-light, three-pane window on the first floor. A canted bay window on the ground floor has a moulded parapet, string course, and a tall two-light window. A smaller, set-forward gable acts as a two-storey porch which has an octagonal finial; a hip-roofed oriel window incorporates shields within quatrefoiled aprons, with a two-pane window on each facet. A label mould with ornamented spandrels sits above a Tudor-arched porch with a half-glazed door and side-lights featuring Gothic glazing. The three-storey range to the left has a gable stack, a single attic window, and the string course forms a hoodmould over a two-light window on the second floor, above a two-storey, shallow rectangular castellated bay with three-light windows to both floors. The left return has two gables with triple-shafted stacks and hoodmoulds to the windows of a projecting gable, while the right return features external stacks – one with two shafts and the other, on a projecting gable, with three shafts.
The interior has not been inspected.
Originally named The Retreat, this house is a good example of the Romantic influences on house design at the end of the Georgian era, demonstrating an adaptation of a style more frequently used in school and college buildings. It is indicative of the designs of James Wilson. Formerly used as a nursing home, it was adapted for school use in 1959, with an assembly hall added in 1982.
Local climate
The Park Preparatory School receives an average of 860 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 60% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 64% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 34 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 52% of listed buildings. Of these, 15 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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- Full EPC report — heating system, energy costs, size, glazing, construction etc.
- Sale history — 4 transactions since 1996
- Related listed building consents — 5 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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