Queen Elizabeth Higher School, South Range

CREDITON

SS826000 ST LAWRENCE GREEN 672-1/5/151 (North side) Queen Elizabeth Higher School, south range

GV II

School. 1859 to the designs of John Hayward, school opened 1860. Flemish bond brick; Bathstone and Ham Hill dressings; slate roof; stacks with brick shafts and Bathstone quoins. Tudor style. Plan: Overall E-plan. Central block contains the hall with entrances to left and right; identical double depth masters' houses at either end, each with a central entrance and rear wing. Exterior: Hall block single storey; masters' houses 2 storeys and attic. Symmetrical 3:5:3 bay front. The 5-bay hall block in the centre has a gable-ended roof (central lantern missing); plinth; coped buttresses with set offs. Coped parapet, gabled over the centre of each bay with a stone shield in each gable. Moulded string below parapet with Tudor style carvings; projecting griffins carved at each corner. 5 Ham Hill 3-light windows with hollow-chamfered mullions and high transoms, glazed with iron casements with glazing bars. Moulded string at sill level is carried out round buttresses. To left and right of the hall there are gateways with chamfered Tudor arches and coped parapets rising as a gable in the centre with a carved shield. The rear elevation has a secondary corridor block. The masters' houses each have stone quoins and 2 coped gables to the front with kneelers; moulded stone string at first floor sill level. Shouldered stacks on the inner returns have quoins and coped caps, stack to left end house rebuilt. Steps up to central 2-centred arched doorway with a hoodmould in the centre; original plank doors with ornamental strap hinges. Original inner doorways with half-glazed doors with a splate finial tot he frame. 4-light mullion and transom stone windows with hoodmoulds to left and right. The first floor has outer 3-light stone mullioned windows with hoodmoulds, 2-light window in the centre, 2 similar 2-light attic windows. The outer returns continue in the same style. The right return is very complete with 5 ground floor windows and 5 first floor windows. Gabled dormer to the left; rear wing gabled to the front to the right. The left return has some C20 timber windows: 5 ground and 5 first floor windows. Interior: The hall is very complete with a 5-bay open roof with tie-beam trusses with chamfered arch braces carried on moulded corbels; 2 tiers of purlins; windbraces. 3-light windows to each end. A framed print in the hall shows the inauguration of the school in 1860. John Hayward of Exeter was the leading local Gothic Revival architect from the 1840s. He worked principally on church restoration and carried out an extensive restoration and repair programme on Crediton parish church in the 1870s. There are only a handful of secular buildings by him in the county. The school is typical of his work in the 1860s, scholarly and restrained.

Listing NGR: SS8266600474