The Old College, Outbuilding Adjoining Left Gable End Of College, Wall Adjoining Right Front Of College

WEEK ST MARY WEEK ST MARY SX 29 NW 6/86 The Old College, outbuilding adjoining left 29.9.61 gable end of College, wall adjoining right front of College

GV II*

House, formerly grammar school, outbuilding and wall. Built 1508 for Dame Thomasine Percival who endowed the school. C20 alterations and repairs. Coursed polyphant with granite dressings and slate roof. Present building survival of larger complex (qv New College and Hayescroft). Single depth plan with left gable end polyphant chimney probably rebuilt and massive rear granite lateral stack with off-set weatherings and moulded granite cap. Perhaps with worn merlons. This stack is gabled back to the roof. Granite coping and quoins to right gable end. Rear left stair turret. 2-storey, 4-window range with slatestone rubble moulded plinth. Off-centre, moulded, granite 4-centre arched doorway with shield in tympanum and floral motifs in spandrels. Ground floor windows renewed and or repaired, 3-light casements 6 panes per light with glazing bars and new timber lintels. 2 rear 3-light ground floor windows with pointed heads and hollow-chamfered granite mullions below square-headed hood moulds with label stops, diamond leads. Ground floor room right is hall with slate floor and moulded granite fireplace, lintel probably renewed. Kitchen to left of entrance has renewed polyphant fireplace. Moulded granite arch into stair turret. Stairs altered, moulded granite arch with ogival apex from stairs into first floor raised about 45 cm. Principals visible in upstairs room. Roof timbers partly renewed, remaining older timbers circa C18. Single-storey outbuilding adjoining left gable end of college has 2 blocked rear windows with moulded granite jambs; 1 has hood mould and label stops. Battlemented coursed polyphant wall adjoining right front of range and running along street front has granite moulded coping to merlons and embrasures. Narrow opening to partially- blocked turret in thickness of wall, on college side, possibly for ringing bell. Thomasine Bonaventure was born in Week St Mary and eventually married Sir John Percival, Mayor of London, 1498-9. The foundation of Week St Mary Grammar School was similar to the foundation of Macclesfield Grammar School, founded by Sir John Percival in 1503. The grammar school at Week St Mary was the third of its kind to be founded by a woman. The deed of endowment has survived (qv Marhayes). Cornwall County Record Office, AD.405. Alterations and repairs by Paul Pearn in 1975 for the Landmark Trust. An etching by Miss Hawksworth from a drawing by S Porut of the entrance appears in Relics of Antiquity or Remains of Ancient Structures, with Other Vestiges of Early Times in Great Britain, London (1811). P L Hull, The Endowment and Foundation of a Grammar School at Week St Mary by Dame Thomasine Percival, reprinted from The Journal of the Royal institution of Cornwall, New Series, Vol.VII, Part 1, 1973.

Listing NGR: SX2381097673