Old School House

Old School House

This is a brick-built school house dating from 1722, erected by Neville's Workhouse, a local educational charity established in 1605. The building has been subject to later alterations and additions, but retains significant 18th-century features.

The main structure is constructed of brick with some stonework, now largely covered in later render. The roof is pantiled. The south-facing front elevation is nearly symmetrical, with a central entrance slightly offset to the west and a straight staircase directly inside. The entrance is covered by an early 20th-century gabled porch with a six-panel door. Above this doorway, partially obscured by the porch, is an inscription reading "Neville's Work House rebuilt AD 1722". The two upper windows are slightly narrower than the lower ones, and all retain four-pane sashes with exposed sash boxes. The roof has plain verges and rebuilt brick end stacks.

The east room on the ground floor features a gable end smoke bay with an inglenook and a doorway leading to a lean-to extension to the south. This extension connects to a further lean-to extension to the north via a doorway, and also has its own external door. The south elevation of the eastern lean-to is blind.

The west gable is mainly rendered, but the gable end appears to be built largely of rubble and cobble stonework with brick used for the chimney stack. Evidence survives of a stone plinth and dressed stone quoining at the left rear corner, possibly remains from an earlier building. A blocked ground floor window and a still-open attic window of nine panes with metal glazing bars are present on this elevation, the latter having been slightly reduced in size.

The rear north elevation has modern replacement joinery throughout. The far left window, which lights the bathroom, has been reduced in size. The left end of the ground floor is covered by a semi-sunken lean-to extension with a slate roof.

The east gable is largely covered by a lean-to extension with a slate roof. The exposed attic level is brick-built and unrendered, with a nine-pane attic window.

Internally, both ground floor rooms in the original house have an exposed spine beam supporting the floor above. Both rooms also contain alcoves built into the wall thicknesses, probably original, though these have been boarded out with modern sheet material. The eastern room preserves a gable end smoke bay complete with its bressumer beam, also obscured by modern boarding. The ground floor left side includes a walk-in cupboard. Most doors are Victorian or later replacements except for one two-panel door upstairs.

The roof structure appears original, comprising hewn hardwood timbers with pegged joints, mostly original common rafters. The roof is supported by a central cross wall and two collared trusses supporting purlins.

The property includes a low garden wall to the front and a lined well to the rear.

Neville's Workhouse was established in 1605 by Thomas, Earl of Exeter and his wife Dorothy (daughter of Sir John Neville). The charity was possibly a refoundation of an earlier charity by the Nevilles of Snape dating to the 14th century. It was established with property producing an annual income of £30 per year to provide education to twelve local girls. When the building was rebuilt in 1722, Brownlow, Earl of Exeter and Charles Cecil, Lord of the Manors of Snape and Well, altered the charity to reduce the number of girls educated at any one time to eight. In 1788 the charity was further altered to provide four separate schools for boys and girls in Well and Snape, with each local family entitled to a free place for one boy and one girl between the ages of six and thirteen, and the option to pay for additional places. The Old School House is thought to have been used as the girls' school in Well, attended by around twenty free scholars and a small number of fee-paying girls. Between 1774 and 1818, considerable sums were spent on improvements to the Old School House and other charity property. The 1856 Ordnance Survey map names Neville's Workhouse and shows additional buildings to the east, which were probably demolished in 1867 when a new school was built and the Old School House became the school master's house. In 1906 this school was taken over by the Board of Education as a state primary school, with the Old School House leased to the head teacher until the school's closure in 1960.