School House

MORCHARD BISHOP CHURCH STREET (north side) SS 7607 - 7707 11/139 Morchard Bishop - School House GV II

House, formerly schoolmasters house. Probably 1872. Snecked volcanic stone with Hamstone dressings; snecked volcanic stone stacks with brick chimney shafts; red tile roof with horizontal bands of fish-scale tiling and alternate plain and crested ridge tiles. Gothic-style L-shaped building with main range facing south and crosswing projecting forward from left (west) end. 3-room ground plan with axial stack between rooms in crosswing and end stack projecting from gable end of main block. 2-storeys. Walls are battered out slightly near the ground and a moulded Hamstone drip course just below first floor level rises over the ground floor windows as a continuous hoodmould. All the windows have depressed 2-centred arches over small shoulders, the ground foor arches higher than the first floor arches. The single ground floor windows of main front and gable end of crosswing are square- headed 3-light timber mullion-and-upper-transom windows with arch filled with rounded fish-scale pattern tiles and relieving arch under hood mould comprising alternate blocks of Hamstone and volcanic trap. Main front has single 2-light half dormer with half-hipped roof to first floor. End of wing has another 3-light mullion-and-upper-transom window to first floor with fish-scale tile infil of low arch of volcanic stone, and a narrow arch-headed stair window with gothic-style glazing pattern. Shoulder headed door with original monopitch hood on curving struts is set in inner wall of wing. 2-windows on outer wall of wing are narrower versions of main ground floor windows and front one given a square hood. Right end stack to first floor only and rests on series of corbels, and this end has plainer arch-headed windows. End of wing is half-hipped. Original clustered chimney shafts. Interior not inspected. Attractive house built at same time and in same style as adjacent Primary School (q.v.).

Listing NGR: SS7730207557