Schoolhouse, Foulden

Schoolhouse, Foulden

A school building designed by John Lessels and dated 1865, which incorporates earlier fabric in part, with a further schoolroom added in 1912. The building has undergone later additions and alterations to its front and rear elevations.

The schoolhouse forms part of an asymmetrical terrace comprising several distinct elements arranged in school gothic style. From left to right, it consists of a single-storey, 2-bay block to the outer left (Bankhill); a single-storey building with attic and 2-bay principal block at centre (Drumoyne); a single-storey building with attic and 3-bay range to the right; and a single-storey, 2-bay block to the outer right (The Old Schoolhouse).

The construction is predominantly squared and snecked tooled cream sandstone with red sandstone margins in places and terracotta dressings. The rear elevation incorporates tooled rubble. A base course and moulded eaves course with chevron detail run across the frontage, with quoins, chamfered openings, and predominantly sandstone mullions. The outer right block is constructed in rubble sandstone with a corbelled brick eaves course and overhanging timber bracketed eaves.

The south-west (entrance) elevation facing Bankhill displays the 2-bay former schoolroom with a 5-light round-arched glazing row in a lean-to projection to its right. A large 5-light pointed-arched window breaks the eaves to the left, featuring a decorative terracotta hoodmould. A sandstone panel dated 1912 is centred in the gablehead, surmounted by a wind vane. A segmental-arched canopy with Corinthian springers and decorative eaves is recessed to the outer left, adjoining Thistle Cottage.

The Drumoyne block comprises a 2-bay principal former schoolroom with a tripartite pointed-arched window to the right, decorated with a terracotta hoodmould and accompanied by a gabled dormer above with decorative bargeboards. A gabled bay breaking the eaves to the left contains a large 5-light pointed-arched window at ground level with decorative terracotta hoodmould and a carved sandstone swag above, embossed with 'Foulden'. A lozenge-shaped panel recessed above incorporates decorative tiles and a shield dated 1865.

The Old Schoolhouse forms a 3-bay range to the right with a 4-light round-arched glazing row centred at ground. A projecting 3-bay lean-to porch to the front features barley-twist Corinthian columns dividing the bays. Modern windows in infilled porches flank the centre (to the left at Drumoyne and to the right at The Old Schoolhouse). A 3-light round-arched glazing row appears in a hipped dormer breaking the eaves at centre. The single-storey, 2-bay range to the outer right has a projecting 6-light window to the left and a single window in a former doorway to the right, where a bracketed canopy remains in place.

The north-east (rear) elevation shows Bankhill with a part-glazed timber door at ground to the left and a bipartite window to the right, with irregular fenestration at first-floor level and a large tripartite window in a gabled bay to the outer right. Drumoyne features two large bipartite windows offset to the right of centre, a glazed addition centred at first-floor level, a single window at ground to the left, and a bipartite window at first-floor level. The Old Schoolhouse has single windows at both floors to the right and a single window in a gabled projection at first-floor level to the left. A lower range to the outer left incorporates a 3-bay flat-roofed addition at upper-floor level.

Windows are predominantly 6-pane timber sashes, though some modern windows appear at the rear. Red tile roofs with fishscale banding face the front elevation, while grey slate roofs appear at the rear (modern pantiles in part to The Old Schoolhouse). Decorative brattishing adorns the rooflines. Stone-coped skews and gabletted skewputts complete the roofscape. Coped sandstone chimney stacks, built up in brick in part, feature circular cans.

The interiors were not seen during the 1999 survey and therefore remain undescribed.

The site is enclosed to the front by a low coped sandstone boundary wall.