Clapham Primary School

Clapham Primary School

A national school designed by Edward Paley and built in 1864. The building is constructed of squared and dressed local stone with ashlar dressings, arranged in an L-shaped plan of two linked ranges oriented north-north-east to south-south-west.

The single-storey structure features ashlar dressings with slightly overhanging bracketed eaves and pitched and hipped roofs of graduated Welsh slate. The plinth is coped, and metal finials crown several roof apexes. Windows throughout are Gothic in character with Gothic tracery.

The north-west main elevation includes an entrance bay to the left containing the principal entrance. This entrance is set within a segmental pointed arched opening with a hood mould featuring head stops said to represent James William and his wife Henrietta, who had died in 1853. Above the door, the words FARRER MEMORIAL are inscribed, and the stone tympanum carries the inscription: ERECTED IN MEMORY OF/ JWF/ BY OF WLF & JF 1864. The slightly higher central section displays a central six-light stepped window with cushed heads, breaking through the eaves as a half dormer. This is flanked on either side by triple lancets, with a left gable stack. The projecting right end bay, forming the gable end of a cross wing, contains a large plate tracery window of four cusp-headed stepped lancets with hood mould and head stops (male left, female right). The left return has a two and three-light window of short lancets, while the right return features a central external chimney with triangular head rising through the eaves, carrying a single large circular chimney pot, with short three-light lancet windows to either side. Multiple roof lights illuminate the interior.

The south-east rear elevation displays stepped lancets with cusped heads to the cross wing gable end and paired cusp-headed lancet windows. A shoulder-arched entrance with chamfered jambs adjoins the right return. The main range rear wall contains two triple pointed-arch windows with a similar shoulder-arched entrance to their right side. The end bay is blind.

Interior details remain largely original. The former infant and sewing room classroom retains a boarded dado and has an inserted mezzanine floor with suspended ceiling. The original moulded segmental-arched fireplace (now blocked) survives, and a single original door at the north end provides entry to the former small school room, now a kitchen. Corbels supporting the roof structure remain visible, and the original roof structure is retained above the inserted floor. The former elementary schoolroom features a timber boarded floor, boarded dado, and suspended ceiling. Corbels of the roof structure remain visible below the ceiling, with the original roof structure understood to survive above. The original moulded segmental-arched fireplace (blocked) is retained. The south end displays a large moulded pointed-arched opening fitted with a tripartite folding screen of three original six-panel chamfered doors beneath a tympanum. At the north end stands a central full-height timber cupboard with segmental head, divided into upper and lower compartments, with doorways to either side providing access to the original porch and small classroom.