Warminster School

WARMINSTER CHURCH STREET 1. 5411 (East Side) No 28 (Warminster School) (Formerly listed as No 28 (Lord Weymouth School) ST 8645 SE 5/67 28.4.52. ST 8745 SW 6/67

II* GV

1. Built 1705 to 1708 and endowed 1707 by 1st Lord Weymouth (see inscribed tablet over entrance). 2 1/2 storeys, local rubble, irregular with occasional ashlar blocks on ground floor and wider yellow courses on 1st floor. Plinth, 1st floor string and moulded eaves cornice. Rusticated quoins. Old tile roof with coped verges and gable end chimneys. Symmetrical with 7 bays and slight central break. 7 hipped 2 light glazing bar dormers, cross stone mullion and transom casement windows, slightly taller on ground floor; 3 central 1st floor windows with original lead lights. Central doorpiece from a design by Christopher Wren circa 1670s, or possibly earlier still, from Longleat whence it was removed and cut down to its present form:- Bath stone engaged Corinthian columns with entablature and bracketted cornice flanking half pilasters to jambs with architrave overarch, central carved keystone and fruit and drapery swags in spandrels. School set back from road with hipped lean-to to left with 2 ground floor windows. On the right is a 3 storey range in painted brick and slate roof, probably early C19, with 2 windows to upper floors. The interior of the school has a fine panelled (staff) room with an ornamental fireplace (also said to have been brought from Longleat): swagged Ionic capitals, flanking shell niches, egg and dart cornice; ceiling of this room painted by an Italian prisoner of war in 1944. The east front of the school repeats the general design but has a plainer central door in plain stone surround. Small square rusticated piers at corners of garden to Church Street in which are situated a C16-C17 female statue and the fragments of a possibly C15 piscina. Similar gate piers with ball finials to Ash Walk. 16 ft coursed and squared mid C19 wall encloses large space to east, with green house on north side. Dr Arnold and Dean Stanley educated here.

Listing NGR: ST8688645279