Haywards Old School And Drama Centre

The building is a school, incorporating two teachers' houses, now used as a Youth and Drama Centre. Constructed in 1859 by John Hayward, an architect from Exeter, it was subsequently extended in 1874, 1890, and 1894 by Bovett, who employed a matching style. The exterior is built with snecked local volcanic trap stone and dressed with Ham Hill stone, with an asbestos slate roof replacing the original natural slate. Brick and stone stacks are present. The design is in the Gothic Revival style.

The plan incorporates a double courtyard, with the two teachers' houses positioned in front and roofed parallel to the road. The classroom blocks are single-story in height. The symmetrical front façade has a 1:3:3:1-bay arrangement, with the houses centrally located and each featuring two gabled dormers. The classroom gables on either side feature deep eaves with bargeboards displaying decorative blind tracery, apex pendants, and wrought iron finials. Each house has a central, two-centered arched doorway with a chamfered stone surround and hoodmould with label stops. The original ledged and braced boarded doors are fitted with ornamental strap hinges and flanked by three-light, hollow-chamfered mullioned windows with hoodmoulds and label stops. Similar two-light dormer windows are also present. The gable ends of the classrooms have large, four-light hollow-chamfered stone mullioned windows, with high transoms. A twentieth-century doorway with a boarded door was inserted to the left of the right-hand classroom. A probable secondary, three-bay classroom block, roofed parallel to the road, is located at the left end of the range, with a stack and three two-light mullion-and-transom windows. The left return of the left classroom wing features a large, shouldered lateral stack with set-offs and four three-light hollow-chamfered mullion and transomed windows, with a twentieth-century door added to the right. The right-hand classroom wing is partially concealed but likely features similar details. The remaining areas of the building continue the style with mullion-and-transom windows and substantial lateral stacks.

The interior has not been inspected, but may retain original open classroom roofs and other features. The school was founded using funds from an early seventeenth-century charity established by Sir John Hayward, a Rochester merchant, administered by Buller of Downes. Historical records suggest that the English and Blue Schools, previously located at Penton since 1814, were moved to this building in 1859. A commemorative plaque indicates that Ernest Bevin attended the school between 1890 and 1892.