South West Block Of Ripon Grammar School

The South-West Block of Ripon Grammar School is a private school, later becoming a grammar school, built in 1827 with subsequent alterations and additions around 1878 and 1888, designed by George Corson. It is constructed of pink brick with brick and stone dressings, and has a hipped slate roof. The building originally comprised a U-plan, with a later addition to the east corner. The front range, which incorporates the schoolmaster’s house, is five bays wide by five bays deep, with elevations on three sides, and further wings to the rear at each corner. The building sits on a plinth with stone copings. The schoolmaster's house has an unusual and highly refined Greek Doric temple front serving as a porch. In this design, the columns lack bases, and the triglyphs extend backward as stone joists, creating gaps where metopes would traditionally be, demonstrating the supposed early origins of these architectural elements. The temple front is topped by a pediment, flanked by tall 12-pane sash windows with ashlar aprons. Five smaller, similar sashes are above, set on an ashlar sill band. All ground floor windows are topped by flat brick arches. The building has wooden bracketed eaves, a hipped roof, and brick ridge stacks, as well as gabled roof dormers. The side elevations are similar, with two dummy basement windows on either side. The rear wings have an irregular arrangement of sash windows. A late 19th-century Gothic revival-style extension in red brick has been added to the east, featuring an impressive tower with a pyramidal roof.

Inside the original block, there is a cantilevered stone staircase with an iron balustrade, a single surviving original fireplace in the front left room, and a triglyphed frieze in the entrance hall. The school was commissioned by Mrs Elizabeth Sophia Lawrence (1761-1844) of Studley Royal and was initially intended as a private school; it became a grammar school between 1874 and 1879. Historical records indicate that the school’s origins lie in a school associated with the medieval college, which was dissolved in 1547. The school was re-founded in 1555 on a site south of the parish church, and moved to its present address around 1870, becoming independent of the college in 1604.