School and Master's House Including Playground and Garden Walls

This is a board school and master's house, built in 1875 in South Zeal for 126 children. The design is by Charles Pinn of Exeter. The building is constructed of ironstone and slate rubble, with rock-faced granite and Bathstone dressings, and has a slate roof with gabled ends and exposed rafter ends, although the central range has an asbestos slate roof.

The plan comprises a long central range containing schoolrooms, a large schoolroom cross-wing to the left, and the schoolmaster’s house to the right, with two short, staggered parallel ranges. A porch is located in the outer right angle, and there is a short projecting wing at the front. The design is unusual, representing a late use of Romanesque and Italianate styles.

The single-storey school and two-storey master’s house present an asymmetrical front elevation. The central range features round-headed windows with 1, 2, and 3 lights, fitted with 19th-century horizontal pivot casements, and a round-headed doorway with a 19th-century plank door and wrought iron hinges. Two 20th-century doorways flank a 20th-century casement with a 20th-century lean-to canopy over timber posts.

A prominent feature is the large cross-wing projecting from the left, which has a tripartite window with round-headed lights and an oval panel above. This window is flanked by rusticated rock-faced granite buttresses with imposts, and a large round arch in the gable above rises to a bellcot with four Norman-style colonnettes and cushion capitals, supporting a short pyramidal stone spire with an ornate wrought iron weathervane. Projecting verges of the cross-wing gable are supported on brackets, and the corners feature rusticated rock-faced granite quoins. The left side of the cross-wing has four symmetrically arranged 2-light round-headed windows. The schoolmaster's house has a projecting wing with a 19th-century tripartite sash on the ground floor and a 19th-century four-pane sash above, with a round-headed stair window set back to the right. The porch, set back in the angle, has a dressed Bathstone round arch. A later slate-hung addition is above the porch. Rock-faced granite quoins extend around the whole building, and a rock-faced granite plinth runs continuously around the base.

Contemporary garden walls and a playground area border the front of the building, constructed of ironstone and slate rubble with rock-faced granite coping. Monolithic gateposts with round heads and wrought iron gates with cast spear-head finials complete the front boundary. The interior was not inspected, but the hall in the cross-wing appears to have been ceiled, and the cast-iron bell-frame and bell in the bellcot remain intact.