Neuadd-y-Cyfnod (Old Grammar School), Including Forecourt Walls, Piers & Railings

Neuadd-y-Cyfnod (Old Grammar School), Including Forecourt Walls, Piers & Railings

Neuadd-y-Cyfnod is a Victorian former school complex built in 1851, designed in Tudor Gothic style with an irregular U-shaped plan. The building is constructed of rough-dressed, snecked stone with slatestone quoins and painted sandstone dressings. The roofs are slate with coped and kneelered gable parapets and simple two-stage chimneys throughout.

The principal elevation is asymmetrical and divided into three parts: a central storeyed entrance section flanked by the school hall to the left and an advanced, taller storeyed range to the right.

The central block comprises a two-storey gabled range whose left-hand roof pitch continues down to incorporate a porch with a gabled bellcote above. The parapet terminates as a stepped buttress to the left of the entrance. The Tudor-arched entrance has a moulded and returned label with half-glazed double doors, above which is a sandstone tablet bearing a Latin foundation inscription dated 1851. The bellcote features an arched bell opening. To the right of the entrance is a three-light transmullioned window at ground floor with a two-light mullioned window above, both displaying decorative lozenge-pattern glazing.

The advanced gabled wing to the right has a four-light transmullioned window to the ground floor and a similar three-light window above, both with plain returned labels and plain glazing. Heraldic tablets with labels flank the upper window. Roof ventilators are positioned to the front and sides, the latter with corbelled-out upper floors. The northeast return features a cross-window at ground floor level. Recessed into the angle between this and the entrance block is a further entrance with a window above.

Adjoining the right-hand range to the rear, forming the building's southwest arm, is a further two-storey range. This has a ground-floor cross-window to the left with a taller cross-window above and an adjacent six-light vertical window, both with gables over. Further cross-windows occupy the ground-floor right, with two and three-light mullioned windows under the eaves to the upper floor. A stepped, flush, lateral chimney rises at the side.

The hall range adjoins to the left and contains three-light transmullioned windows to left and right, and a cross-window to the right of centre, flanked by stepped buttresses. Between the left-hand window and the right-hand section is a three-stage lateral chimney with sloped capping and offset stack, with a further heraldic plaque at sill height. The hall's left (northeast) gable has stepped diagonal buttresses and features a five-light transmullioned window with arched upper lights. An expressed segmental relieving arch rises above, with an inset and framed heraldic plaque above that. The hall windows display the same decorative glazing as the central entrance block.

Adjoining the hall range flush to the rear and fronting the B 4391 is a two-storey range of three bays. This has near-central cross-windows to ground and first floors, flanked by three-light transmullioned windows whose upper portions slightly break the eaves and are topped with large gables. Later single-storey additions have been made to the gable end.

The rear encloses a metalled courtyard on three sides, the right-hand arm projecting beyond the end of the left-hand one. The latter has a single-storey later range adjoining. A gabled and storeyed porch to the centre features modern part-glazed doors, with further mullioned and transmullioned windows to the main ranges. The left block has a pair of twelve-pane sashes at ground floor, with a single sash in a gabled dormer diagonally above. Two metal louvres are positioned to the roof of this wing.

Enclosing a partly-flagged forecourt at the front and continuing around the northeast side are low coped walls with square, pyramidally-capped gate piers. The northwest section retains its spear-headed iron railings. A two-metre-high coped wall encloses the forecourt on the southwest side, running from the rear of No 2 Station Road to the right school wing, which it adjoins.

The main hall contains half-height small-field oak panelling erected to commemorate the Great War. The former open roof of the hall is currently obscured by a modern false ceiling.