Drakes Church Infant And Junior School

Drakes Church Infant and Junior School is a school and master's house dating to approximately 1862, with extensions added in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Constructed of red brick with limestone ashlar detailing, it has a slate roof. The school faces west and comprises the master’s house, which is two rooms deep with a left-lateral stack and is built gable-end onto the front. Set back from the front are three-bay wings on either side, forming the school, with porches on each gable end. In the late 19th century, the master’s house was extended to the rear by one room, with another lateral stack. Behind the right (southern) end is a late 19th/early 20th century extension set at a right angle and possessing an outer lateral stack. The house is two storeys high, while the school wings are tall but single-storey. The building is designed in a Tudor Gothic style.

The front elevation has a near-symmetrical seven-bay arrangement, with a 1:1:1:2:1:1:1 window layout. All windows are limestone mullion-and-central-transom designs with hoodmolds. The sole exception is the three-light window on the ground floor of the house. Most windows have plain 20th-century glazing, although the schoolroom casements retain glazing bars. Some rear windows and the window at the left end still preserve original patterned leaded glass. The front of the house has one ground-floor window, two first-floor windows, and a ventilator slit in the gable. A gabled porch to the right of the window has a stone Tudor arch containing a plank door with ornate strap hinges.

The school wings each have a central gabled bay projecting slightly forward, featuring a stone panel in the gable with a sunken quatrefoil. The gables are surmounted by tall chimney shafts. Each bay is flanked by buttresses with weathered offsets, and each wing is gable-ended with stone bellcotes. The chimney shafts are two stages high, circular, and feature projecting coping. Each gable end has a gable-ended porch with a two-light stone window and a stone two-centred arch facing forward. Only the right porch retains the original plank door with ornate strap hinges. Above each porch is a two-light window flanked by single lights with central transoms, set slightly lower at the top. Ventilator slits are also present in each gable. The rear of the school wings is similar to the front. The rear of the house features an addition with horned four-pane sashes. The other extension has large timber mullion-and-transom windows with glazing bars, and the stack has projecting brick pilasters. The interior was not inspected.