Roecliffe School And The Schoolhouse

Roecliffe School and The Schoolhouse is a building constructed in 1874 for Isabell Lawson in memory of her husband, Andrew Sherlock Lawson. It is designed in Victorian Gothick and Jacobean style, featuring dark red brick with ashlar dressings and roofs covered in fish scale tiles. The structure is two storeys high, consisting of a four-bay main hall with a north porch and a bell tower to the left and center, along with gabled cross wings at each end. To the right is the advanced bay of the attached schoolhouse, which faces west and is also two storeys tall with three bays.

The main hall includes a board door in the gabled porch, which is now used as a stock room, and the windows are mullioned and transomed. There are two gabled dormers featuring three-light wooden mullion windows and applied timber framing in the gables. The cross wings have large Gothic-style pointed traceried windows, and the gables are adorned with enriched fretted barge boards. An inscription over the porch door reads: "Erected 1874 by Isabell Lawson / in memory of her beloved husband / Andrew Sherlock Lawson / of Aldborough Manor". The arcaded bellcote and spire were rebuilt in 1984.

The schoolhouse, located on the right return, is designed in Tudor style with a central board door flanked by cross windows. The first floor features three-light mullioned windows, and the two side bays are jettied and gabled. There is a ridge stack to the left of center and another at the rear of the roof ridge on the right.

Inside, the school hall retains original movable timber partitions that separate the two classrooms in the cross wings. A blocked fireplace is located against the south wall, and original doors are still in place. Access to the clock in the belfry is via a 'Jacob's Ladder' from a small ground-floor room. There is a door providing access from the schoolhouse to the school, located opposite the front door, next to the staircase.