41, Long Street

41 Long Street, Tetbury

A townhouse, latterly converted to Tetbury Grammar School and Sir William Romney's School, now functioning as a group medical practice with flats above. The building dates from the early to mid-18th century, with a core probably of the early 17th century, and underwent remodelling around 1800.

The exterior to Long Street is rendered and incised to resemble ashlar, rising to two storeys with an attic, across four bays, beneath Cotswold stone slate roofs with ashlar end stacks and one brick stack. A three-course ashlar parapet crowns the elevation, with rendered string course and plat band, and vertical side-strips. The ground floor contains three six-over-six pane sashes in plain reveals, with the doorcase placed in the right-hand bay. The door is set within a case with two attached stone Doric columns, frieze, dentils, cornice and a small recessed blocking course. The doorway itself is semi-circular-headed with a radial fanlight and a panelled door with fielded and flush panes. The first floor displays six-over-nine pane sashes in plain reveals. Four small hipped dormers with multi-paned timber casements sit within the attic, partially hidden behind the parapet.

The rear range extends to three storeys and connects to the main range via a polygonal stair well. The garden elevation finishes in ashlar with a parapet and moulded dentil cornice, two string courses and a first-floor sill band. Windows have moulded architraves throughout. The ground floor shows three windows and a semi-circular-headed doorcase to the left, which carries a moulded architrave, keystone, imposts, radial fanlight and double panelled and partly-glazed doors. To the left of the main range sits a large single-storey canted bay of early to mid-19th century date, with hipped roof, stone cornice and parapet. This bay features long twelve-pane sash windows with decorative flattened capitals between them and rosettes along the frieze above.

The building is of double-pile plan with the original stair hall positioned between the two ranges and principal rooms either side of the Long Street entrance. An additional single-storey canted bay extends to the rear.

The house, formerly known as The Ferns, was purchased in 1671 by Nathaniel Body, a clothier, who laid out gardens on the former grounds of the manor house. The Body family remained until 1770, when John Paul, a solicitor, acquired the property and partly rebuilt it around 1800. The Paul family retained the house until 1892. In 1897 Mrs Raymond-Barker occupied it. In 1921 it was converted to Tetbury Grammar School, a use that continued until 1969 when a new school opened in Lowfield Road; the building subsequently became a medical practice. The former grounds, used as school playing fields, were sold and developed with housing from 1970.

In the 1950s the then Headmaster, Reginald Woodward, renamed the school Sir William Romney's School, after Sir William Romney (died 1611), a prominent Tetbury merchant who became a member of the Merchant Adventurers and one of the founders of the East India Company and the governing body of the Virginia colony. Romney's will established an endowment providing tolls on wool and yarn to fund a schoolmaster's salary for a parish grammar school. This fund was administered by a body known as The Thirteen, which continues to hold it. The school was originally held in the north aisle roof of the parish church until 1800, when declining market tolls caused it to fall into abeyance. A new elementary school arrangement was made in 1830. When Tetbury Grammar School reopened at The Ferns in the 1920s with contributions from Romney's fund, and especially when the school adopted Sir William Romney's name in the 1950s, the link to its historic benefactor was restored. The school became comprehensive in 1954 and relocated in 1969, retaining the Romney name.

The interior has been almost entirely altered through successive conversions to school and medical practice use.