Powell'S School

Powell's School is a school building dating to circa 1714, with 20th-century internal alterations. It is constructed of coursed squared limestone with ashlar dressings, a rear wing of brick with ashlar dressings, and has a stone slate roof with a half-hip to the left. An external stone stack on the left side has an ashlar top designed to resemble a pair of flues with moulded tops, with similar stacks at the right end and two rear axial stacks – four in total to the rear left.

The building is two storeys and an attic, with a seven-window range. The first floor features seven two-light stone mullion-and-transom windows with leaded lights set in flat, unmoulded stone surrounds and projecting stone cills. The central window has a moulded cornice and a segmental pediment bearing a painted inscription that reads “FRONT REPAIRED IN (1853) BY THE HONBLE WM L BATHURST.” The ground floor has six similar windows lacking projecting cills. A six-panel door with glazed upper panels is set within a flat surround featuring a pulvinated frieze and pediment. Seven dormers are visible: a central gabled dormer and six hipped dormers, all featuring two-light leaded casements. The building has a chamfered plinth, a moulded band course over the ground floor, and a moulded timber eaves cornice. A moulded lead hopper-head is situated centrally to the right, now with a cast-iron downpipe.

The left side includes a 19th-century three-pane sash window in a heavy rusticated surround with a keyed lintel and stone cill on the first floor, and a 20th-century plank door in a similar surround to the right. A three-light stone mullion-and-transom window with 19th-century iron casements is located on the ground floor within a projecting ashlar bay at the base of the external stack, with a frieze and moulded stone cornice above. The external stack has flanking carved console brackets above and flush quoins at the left and right angles. The eaves cornice returns in stone, with a false flank wall above the cornice featuring a carved bracket above the eaves to the right side. A frieze and moulded stone cornice incorporates a keyed oculus, now displaying a plastic sign replacing a former painted inscription, which reads: “POWELL’S SCHOOL HOUSE / IN WHICH WERE ESTABLISHED / THE BLUE SCHOOL 1714 / THE YELLOW SCHOOL 1722 / AMALGAMATED AS / POWELL'S SCHOOL 1876.”

A gabled brick wing with sprocketed eaves to the rear has two two-light timber mullion-and-transom windows on each of the first and ground floors in plain reveals with brick flat-arch lintels incorporating stone keystones and stone cills. A round-headed window in the gable, featuring a two-light leaded casement, is set within a flat, unmoulded stone surround with a keystone and rusticated blocks to the short vertical sides, and a projecting stone cill. Band courses run over the ground and first floors, with flush quoins at the left and right angles. A 20th-century lean-to addition to the rear left, constructed of reconstituted stone with a clay tile roof, now houses a new staircase.

The interior features 20th-century alterations, including panelled shutters to the ground floor front windows, a moulded stone fireplace with a Tudor-arched opening to the first floor front left, a 20th-century staircase from the ground to the first floor, and a 19th-century stick baluster staircase from the first floor to the attic. Parts of the butt-purlin roof structure are visible in the attic.