High Bickington Voluntary Control School

The building is a village school, constructed around 1870, with alterations and additions likely occurring in the late 19th or early 20th century. It is built of snecked square stone with ashlar dressings, with some parts rendered on the rear. The roof is gabled and covered in asbestos slate. The plan consists of a range aligned north-south, fronting onto the High Street to the east and backing onto the churchyard of Saint Mary’s Church. A single-storey schoolroom range is to the right, and a gabled cross wing serves as a gatehouse to the left, featuring a gabled attic storey. A gabled cross wing is situated at the rear of the right-hand end of the schoolroom. A rear corridor, dating from the late 19th or early 20th century, runs behind the schoolroom range, featuring a catslide roof and a small extension attached to the rear of the gatehouse cross wing.

The front elevation is asymmetrical and includes a plinth, parapeted gables with shaped kneelers, plain copings and finials. Three large gabled dormers are present on the schoolroom range to the right, each with a large chamfered stone cross window featuring trefoil-headed lights and a chamfered trefoiled circle in the apex. A smaller dormer on the right-hand side lacks a quatrefoil and has a late 20th-century window replacement with a concrete lintel. The dormers are flanked by stone, chamfered mullioned two-light windows, the right-hand dormer having a window only on its left side. These windows have probable 20th-century metal casements. The gabled gatehouse cross wing on the left showcases a first-floor stone chamfered mullioned two-light window, a chamfered arched niche above with a dressed stone arch and a copper bell housed within, and a shallow segmental-pointed archway below with dressed stone voussoirs. A two-storey outshut is located to the left of the gabled cross wing and features a small round-arched first-floor window to the front. The rear of the gatehouse has a first-floor mullioned stone window and a shallow segmental-pointed archway with dressed stone voussoirs. A circa 1900 ground-floor extension incorporates a segmental archway with a pair of large plank doors and a parapet above.

The interior features an archway with a pair of 19th-century chamfered ceiling cross beams with ogee stops. A plank door with a beaded wooden frame and a wooden lintel is situated to the right, while a pointed-arched doorway with a stone arch and plank door is found to the left. The rest of the interior was not inspected, except for the schoolroom where the 19th-century roof is ceiled. A plan of High Bickington Rectory dated 1600 depicts Saint Mary’s Church and a range of buildings, including a gatehouse in a location similar to the school. While no older fabric is evident in the school, it may stand on the site of an earlier building.