The Community Centre And Museum

The Community Centre and Museum began as a village school and master's house. The master's house likely dates to the 18th century, with three classrooms added in 1850, 1876, and 1923. The building materials are a mix of cob for the house, stone for the classrooms, with slate roofs, gabled ends, a brick end stack on the house, and bargeboards on the house gable.

The complex is an irregular group built on a raised pavement above Shute Hill. The schoolmaster’s house faces the street and adjoins a parallel classroom which is slightly set back to the south. The 1876 classroom is further recessed to the south, and the 1923 block is to the rear (west) of the 1850 building and at right angles to it. The later classrooms have detailing sympathetic to the modest Gothic details of the 1850 building.

The schoolmaster’s house has two casement windows in its east end wall and a 20th-century door; two similar windows are on the return side. The 1850 classroom has a symmetrical three-bay front with rusticated quoins and a central gabled porch with a painted arched outer doorway and a hoodmould with label stops. There are four-light timber windows with high transoms, glazing bars, and hoodmoulds on either side of the porch. A similar window is in the east gable end, overlooking Shute Hill, with a pointed arched head. The 1876 classroom features a bellcote, a porch projecting from the east gable end, ornate bargeboards, a crank arched window in the east gable end with timber glazing bars and a hoodmould, and two crank arched windows on the south side. The porch has a similar arched doorway with hoodmould and single-light windows with hoodmoulds on each return, and a similar window to the linking block to the right of the porch. The 1923 classroom, partially hidden behind the others, is said to have started as the stable block to Cross House. It has a corrugated asbestos roof and arched windows with timber glazing bars, but no hoodmoulds.

Inside the schoolmaster’s house, two chamfered crossbeams are preserved. The school was founded in 1726 by Christopher Colman of Radway, who bought the land for it. The group has attractively-scaled, irregular features and makes an important contribution to the streetscape.