The Old School House

The Old School House is a house, originally a schoolmaster’s house, dating to the early 16th century, with later 16th and 17th century alterations and improvements. The external walls are a mix of plastered cob on rubble footings, with some 20th-century repairs using plastered rubble and brick dressings, and rubble stacks topped with brick. The roof is thatched. It is an L-shaped building, with a two-room main block facing north, featuring a large axial stack serving back-to-back fireplaces. The larger room on the left (east) was likely an early 16th-century hall. The room to the right was rebuilt in the early to mid 17th century. A probably mid 16th-century crosswing projects from the left end, with an external lateral stack. A similar crosswing on the right end was demolished in the 19th century to widen Station Road. Modern outshots have been added to the rear. The front of the main block has a 20th-century glass-sided porch in the angle between the two wings, and a single 20th-century window with leaded diamond panes to the right. Similar windows are found on the right gable end and at the rear. Curved oriel windows with glazing bars have been added to the inner side of the crosswing; the gable end of this wing is blank. The roofline now extends down over a former gap between the house and the adjacent property.

The interior retains several historic features reflecting the building's complex structural history. The earliest surviving elements are the hall and crosswing roofs. The hall roof has a 2-bay structure with a side-pegged jointed cruck truss and a cambered collar. One bay has a square set ridge, the other a diagonal set ridge; the former is likely early 16th century, the latter mid 16th century, built at the same time as the crosswing. Both roof sections are heavily sooted, indicating that the hall was originally open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. The crosswing roof features side-pegged jointed cruck trusses with cambered collars and a diagonal set ridge, also smoke-blackened. The trusses nearest the main block were infilled in the late 16th century and are smoke-blackened on the hall side only. The crosswing was floored in the mid 17th century, and has a chamfered crossbeam with exaggerated scroll stops, supported by posts with jowled heads. A rubble fireplace of the same date has an oak lintel, also soffit-chamfered with exaggerated scroll stops. The hall has a late 16th century crossbeam, soffit-chamfered with truncated pyramid stops. The hall stack is apparently mid 17th century, built of granite with an oak lintel soffit-chamfered with scroll stops. A smaller, similar fireplace backing onto the hall serves the right ground floor room, with a mid 17th century roof above, featuring a plastered side-pegged jointed cruck truss, pegged lap-jointed collar and dovetail halvings. Floor levels are uneven throughout the house, and there is a local tradition of a lost cellar.