Library And Museum

ST 8032-8132 MERE CHURCH STREET (north side) 6/32 Library and Museum

GV II

Former National School, now Library and Museum. Dated 1839, enlarged 1892 Squared and coursed limestone rubble, slate roof. A single large space under a wide-span roof, enlarged by the addition of a classroom at the rear (north) in 1864; facilities were extended at the end of the Cl9 by providing the Grove Building (q.v.) on the other side of Barton Lane. There is a further flat- roofed extension of the C20. Front to street is 5 windows; 4 of these are large 4-light plain stone chamfer mullion to cusped heads and with stopped hoods, but centrally is a smaller 3-light above an oval panel in a keyed rectangular surround, inscribed in good cursive lettering: 'National School/Built 1839/ Enlarged/1892'. Return gable left has two 4-light as main front; the back has 4 high level windows similar to those on Church Street. Plinth to front returns left and dies into pavement. Deep eaves, coped gables, small brick gable stacks. Back wing has a 2-light casement with transome in the gable end, and a 2-light on return. Stone stack with brick shaft. Interior: windows have elliptical-rere-arches. Original roof trusses, but only the ties now visible (July 1986). A contemporary comment records that at the opening in 1839 '....between 3 and 400 (children) present were regaled with tea and cake'. An earlier school (q.v. The Chantry) was run for a while by William Barnes, the Dorset dialect poet

Listing NGR: ST8114732328