Combe Down Junior School, With Piers And Railings

CHURCH ROAD Combe Down (South side)

Combe Down Junior School, with piers and railings 05/12/90

GV II

School. 1840, enlarged in 1887 and c1900. MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, slate roofs. PLAN: Original building, west front range, consisted of school master's house on ground and first floors with school room above on second floor. 1887 large single storey schoolroom wing, now assembly hall, built at back (east) and in c1900 further school room was built on south side of rear wing. STYLE: Simplified Gothic style. EXTERIOR: Three storey front range with two window west front. On first floor two large windows, each with group of four cusped lancets. Similar but two and three-light windows on second floor in asymmetrical gables. Lower ground floor has two small replacement lights, doorway at centre with shouldered head, and garage door to right. At each gable end two-light lancet at second floor. Conical metal ventilator on ridge, and deep plain stacks to each coped verge. Elevation to North Road has two and three-light stone mullion windows and wide coped gable over stepped four-light cusped lancet under small quatrefoil, with shoulder to left with cropped stack. Stone plaque records work In Memory of Rev Wm Batchellor ....' who... changed this life for immortaility on 31st January 1856'. Further roof vent, and, far left, porch with small coped gable over plank doorway to shouldered lintel. On south side c1900 school room with gable-ended roof elevation to Rev William Batchellor, and on south return from main front, has splayed corner with squinch projecting gabled unit on three storeys with sashes, and window with four-centred head and iron armature in sixteen panes plus interlace, above two-light lancet with cusping. INTERIOR: School room on second floor of original west front range open to roof but hammer beam trusses are boxed in. Dogleg staircase has stick balusters and turned newels. School room/assembly hall in rear wing divided by folding sliding partition and open to roof, cross gabled at centre. At west end short curved length of retaining wall with rounded curb carrying two panels of spear-head railings, and with two square ashlar piers, protecting lower ground floor area. Unusual design, still in use as a school. SOURCES: (Kelly's Directory: Kelly EH: Somersetshire: London: 1910-: 214). Listing NGR: ST7620462322