Old School And School House

The Old School and School House, now a doctor's surgery and community hall, was built in 1851 by H. Woodyer for T. Gambier-Parry, and later extended. The building is constructed of roughly coursed lias stone with ashlar dressings, and has a tiled roof. Originally designed as a ‘T’ shape, it comprises a single-story schoolroom and a 1 1/2-story schoolmistress's house, with a single-story schoolroom added to fill the rear angle. The entrance front is set away from the road, showing a gable to the schoolroom on the right. This gable has a boarded door set three stone steps above ground level, with an arched head and hoodmould, with floriate stops. Above the door is a two-light window with plate tracery and an ovolo surround. A chimney rises from the lower slope of the roof to the left. The house is set back to the left and features a three-light mullioned window with trefoil heads. An open timber porch is located to the left, with heavy timber corner posts on a stone plinth, a cambered tie beam, 'V' struts, and plain bargeboards. The interior of the porch is weatherboarded with curved braces to the wallplate and a stone plinth. Inside the schoolroom are wooden benches on either side and a boarded door at the rear. Above the mullioned window is a two-light stone dormer on the right and, below the eaves and to the right of the porch, a single-light window with leaded lights and iron opening lights. A stone lean-to on the left gable is not of particular interest. A moulded string course runs at window sill level on the right return. Three two-light mullion and transom windows are set within stone gables, with plain bargeboards. Angled buttresses flank each end, with a rendered projection in the centre not of special note. Inside, the schoolrooms form an ‘L’ shape, with boarded panelling to dado height and painted brickwork above. A fireplace across the internal angle features a corbelled arched stone head and moulded corbels restoring the angle above. Trusses are concealed by inserted ceilings and rise from plain corbels. The school is said to have been built in 1851, correcting a previous identification of 1850 based on a rainwater head. The building forms a group with the church, village hall, old rectory, and Church Lodge.