Old Blundells Including Forecourt Walls On North East And Entrance Arch And Gates And 2 Lodges

Old Blundells, including Forecourt Walls, Entrance Arch, Gates and 2 Lodges

A former school and headmaster's house, now converted into 6 flats, located on Station Road in Tiverton. Built in 1604 with 19th-century additions at the rear. The building is constructed of ham stone ashlar on a plinth of local reddish stone ashlar, with rear windows possibly of Beer stone. The roof is slated and carries 4 red brick chimneys, probably late 19th or early 20th century, fitted with spiked pots.

The building consists of a very long range originally divided into a higher school on the left, lower school and dining hall in the centre, and a parlour at the right-hand end. Three short rear wings project from the main range: the left wing, reached by a passage between the higher and lower schools, was the usher's house; the middle wing, reached by a passage between the lower school and dining hall, contained the kitchen; the right wing was the master's house. Projecting entrance porches fronted the two passages.

The exterior was originally single-storey (an upper floor has since been inserted) with two-storey entrance porches and rear wings. The front elevation has three groups of three windows separated by pairs of gabled porches. The windows contain 12 stone mullioned and transomed lights arranged in three rows of four. Lights in the upper two rows have Tudor arches, while those in the bottom row (a 19th-century addition) are flat-headed. The mullions are double-chamfered with deeply cut hollow mouldings, and straight hoodmoulds frame each window. Buttresses between the windows are also 19th-century additions.

The porches feature round-arched doorways with ovolo and ogee moulded details and hoodmoulds. The left-hand doorway is fitted with iron shoe-scrapers with fleur-de-lys finials. Above the doorways are semicircular niches with round heads containing shell-like carving. Above each niche, in the upper storey, is a three-light mullioned and transomed window with Tudor-arched lights and hoodmould, while the gable contains a small quatrefoil panel. Within the porches are stone benches with moulded wooden tops. The inner doorways are of stone, Tudor-arched and ovolo-moulded. The entire front has a stone corbel table under the eaves.

On the roof behind the left-hand porch is an octagonal wooden bell turret, rebuilt in 1840, with an ogee-leaded roof. The base features fish scale slate hanging and a clock face in the front. Above is a round-headed open arcade with a bracketed cornice below the eaves and a weather vane bearing the initials PB.

The walling, particularly in front of the schoolrooms, is carved with numerous names and 19th-century dates, including those of distinguished Devon families such as Carew, Chichester and Cruwys, and also RD Blackmore.

The left end wall has a 15-light mullioned and transomed ham stone window with straight hoodmould. Lights are Tudor-arched and arranged in three rows of five. The right end wall, including the side of the headmaster's house, also features ham stone mullioned and transomed windows with Tudor-arched lights; two have leaded lights, with the left ground-storey example displaying heraldic devices in coloured glass.

The rear wall has mullioned and transomed windows similar to those at the front. A chimney in the rear wall of the hall has been cut down, and late 20th-century dormer windows have been introduced. A stone corbel table runs under the eaves.

The interior has been substantially altered during the 19th century. The two schoolrooms are no longer recognisable, and the fine two-storey screens with initials PB and the date 1604, which flanked the passage between them, have been removed. The most significant surviving feature is the roof over the former schoolrooms, which remains intact and is remarkably old-fashioned for its date. It features arch-braced collar beams with curved struts rising to the principal rafters and three tiers of curved wind-braces arranged in a star pattern. The remainder of the main roof, apart from the remains of one truss, is understood to have been destroyed by fire in 1945 or 1946. Other original details survive, particularly at numbers 2 (the former dining hall) and 5 (the former usher's house). Number 2 retains original doorways and a fireplace in the rear wall. Number 5 has an original fireplace and a stud partition with Tudor-arched doors. The building contains good 19th-century work throughout.

The subsidiary features include a lawned forecourt approximately 75 metres square, crossed by cobbled paths and enclosed by a stone wall of local reddish coursed and squared rubble approximately 3 metres high. Most of this wall has a gabled coping; that on the right-hand side appears to be of stone, while that at the front end of the left-hand side appears to be concrete. The rear part of the left-hand side has a simpler rounded concrete coping. The quoins at the right-hand end of the front wall are of a different greyish stone.

The centre of the front wall features the main gateway, rising to a considerably higher level and finished with a small triangular gable. It has a double-chamfered round-arched opening with badly weathered remains of imposts and hoodmould. Above is a stone tablet in a moulded frame, inscribed "OLD BLUNDELLS A.D. 1604". Simple iron gates, probably 19th century, with twisted pendants hanging from the top rail flank the gateway.

On the inside of the gateway are two rough-cast single-storey lodges with slated roofs, gabled towards the school and hipped towards the road. Each has a red brick chimney with an octagonal pot positioned to form a finial at each end of the gateway. The lodges have small-paned wood casement windows facing the school.

Blundells was founded under the will of Peter Blundell, a cloth merchant who died in 1601. It became the second largest grammar school in the country, with up to 150 pupils, and probably the largest in terms of building size. The schoolhouse was sold in 1882 to provide funds for the present school buildings on the outskirts of the town. It was repurchased in 1940 with funds collected by the Old Blundellian Club and presented to the school governors in 1945. The building was given to the National Trust in 1954.