Stonar School

Stonar School is a country house, now a girls' school, built between 1775 and 1778 by Thomas Jelly and John Palmer of Bath for Robert Hale, with extensions circa 1832 by H.E. Goodrich. It is constructed of limestone ashlar with a Welsh slate mansard roof and stone stacks. The building is two-and-a-half stories with a seven-window south front, forming a rambling L-plan. The central entrance has a six-panelled door with a fanlight and an ogee-headed architrave, flanked by compound pilasters to the cornice. Two-storied canted bays flank the entrance, each featuring three 12-pane round-arched sashes with pointed hoodmoulds linked by an impost band. First-floor sashes are Tudor-arched, and all windows have interlaced glazing bars. A moulded cornice runs beneath a battlemented parapet, with three dormers featuring arched heads to the lower mansard pitch. An 19th-century addition, in a similar style, is attached to the right, incorporating a canted bay and mullioned casements. A 20th-century porch is also present. The right return has arched sashes on both floors, while the left return mirrors the front with two canted bays, a central ground-floor arched sash instead of a doorway, and a diagonally-set stack on the south-west corner with a moulded octagonal stack. Three attic dormers match those on the front. A stucco wing from the early 19th century is attached to the rear, with Tudor-arched sashes to the ground and first floors. The rear includes 20th-century single-storey additions; an early 19th-century range on the left has a former 19th-century rear entrance concealed within the additions, and a 19th-century wing to the right showcases pairs of arched sashes.

Inside, a central inner octagonal porch features a shallow vaulted ceiling with plaster decoration. The room to the right serves as the school library and contains a reset late 16th-century stone fireplace with caryatids and a scrolled frieze, an overmantel with heraldic arms (likely of the Pawlett family), and an ornate, top-lit ceiling with a dentilled cornice and a scrolled and moulded handrail. Original early 19th-century joinery is present throughout, including six-panelled doors, window shutters, and a former rear entrance with a door of six fielded panels, fanlight, and sidelights. Adam-style fireplaces are found on the first floor. Cottles, the original name of the house, was rebuilt on the site of an earlier house for the Hale family, who also rebuilt the church of St Michael and founded the school.