The Old School House Approximately 7 Metres North-West Of Yeo Farmhouse

The Old School House, approximately 7 metres north-west of Yeo Farmhouse

This is a disused school house, originally a detached kitchen or bakehouse, dating from the late 16th to early 17th century. It is constructed of granite stone rubble laid to rough courses with large dressed quoins, and has a disused granite stack. The roof is now corrugated iron, though it was formerly thatched.

The building is a small single-cell structure facing south-south-west. It is two storeys high. A large stack is positioned at the left (western) end with the remains of an associated curing chamber to the rear and the site of a winder stair towards the front, rising over the top of a large side oven. A secondary woodshed occupies the left end.

The front elevation has a doorway slightly right of centre, with its lintel and jambs made up of large slabs of dressed granite. A secondary porch in front has partly collapsed and lost its monopitch roof; it retains rubble walls with stone benches along the inside. To the right of the doorway are stone windows on each floor, both originally with 2 lights but now missing their central mullions. To the left of the doorway is a tiny slit window provided to light the stair. A large millstone leans against the wall below. The roof is gable-ended. The rear wall has a 2-window front of blocked single light windows to the ground floor and a small 19th-century fixed pane window with glazing bars to the first floor. The curing chamber has a slit window in each outer wall.

Inside, the roof structure was replaced in the late 19th to early 20th century, but otherwise the original interior is well-preserved, though somewhat dilapidated. The crossbeam is soffit-chamfered with worn step stops. The large granite fireplace has a soffit-chamfered oak lintel. On the left side, a segmental-headed doorway leads to a large stone-lined oven under the site of the winder stair. On the right side of the fireplace, there is an archway through the cheek at hearth level through to the curing chamber beyond, now blocked. In the curing chamber, this archway shows below a stone shelf. High above is a plastered niche in the side of the stack, thought to be where smoke from the curing chamber could join the main flue.

This is an important survival. The fireplace with its associated oven and curing chamber demonstrate that this was a working building—a detached kitchen or bakehouse with accommodation or storage space above. Purpose-built buildings of this size and date are of national importance when so well-preserved. It is part of a fine group of associated farm and mill buildings including the farmhouse, office and garden railings, mill, smithy and barn. In the 19th century the road was diverted south of the farm, but before that it ran through the farmyard, so the Old School House would have fronted onto the road. The farm has been in the hands of the Perryman family since circa 1450.