The School House

The School House, St Winefrides and St Winefrides School House

This Puginian-Gothic style school comprises separate boys' and girls' schoolrooms linked by a short wall with an arched statue niche, with corresponding lodgings for masters and nuns at right angles, forming a symmetrical U-shaped plan. The school faces northeast, with the former boys' school (now The School House) to the left and the girls' school (now St Winefrides and St Winefrides School House) to the right.

The buildings are constructed of coursed rock-faced stone with freestone dressings. Steep slate roofs with crested ridge tiles sit above coped gables bearing moulded kneelers, above which are gablets with blind trefoils. Lateral stacks turn to ashlar and are heightened in yellow brick. Windows retain their original mullions, though the glazing has been replaced.

The School House gable end faces the road. The entrance is recessed on the right-hand side beneath a shallow segmental arch with a boarded door. On the left side is a 3-light window, and in the upper storey is a 2-light window alongside a dated tablet in raised letters and a blind trefoil in the gable. The right side wall has three narrow 2-light windows lighting the recessed entrance, then a similar window on the right side with a 2-light window above it under a gablet. Further right the elevation steps back with a tall stack, featuring a 3-light window in the lower storey and 2-light window above, followed by a blocked doorway and another renewed doorway. The left side wall displays a moulded eaves cornice with billet frieze and two superimposed triangular roof dormers with irregular fenestration. From the right end it has a small single light with triangular head in the upper storey, an external stack with a blind window at lower-storey level, a single then 2-light window, two single-light windows in the lower storey beneath a 2-light window under a gablet.

The former boys' school has its gable end projecting in front of the house, featuring three stepped cusped lancets with an inserted doorway lower right under a lintel and a small inserted window above it. The original entrance in a low porch on the left (south) side of the gable end is now obscured by a later projecting garage.

The north side wall of the school, facing the road, comprises four buttressed bays forming a reflected pair with the girls' school. On the inner sides each schoolroom has a 2-light and a single-light window, while the next bay contains a 3-light stepped window under a steep gablet, followed by 2-light and 3-light windows. The rear gable end has an attached coped wall between the two former schools with an arched statue niche in a gabled projection.

The former nuns' lodging (St Winefrides) forms a reflected pair with the former masters' lodging with similar detail but without a dated tablet in the gable end. Its left side wall has only a single doorway lower left.

The girls' school (St Winefrides School House) has a gable end with three stepped cusped lancets, a trefoil in the gable, and a stone stack on the left side behind the verge. Further right, reached through an arched doorway in the garden wall inscribed 'girls' in raised letters over the arch, is a low gabled porch with a boarded door under a segmental head on the left side, a single-light window, and a blocked window with shouldered lintel further right.

The south side wall of the school, facing a rear garden, is five-bay with triangular-headed lights to the windows, three small triangular roof dormers, and two inserted skylights. The central bay has a 2-light window with an inserted doorway and door below it, flanked by 3-light windows, with 2-light windows in the outer bays. An external stack stands left of centre. A fixed iron-frame window has been inserted between the outer bays on the right side, with a tall eaves stack at the right end. The porch on the left side has similar openings and includes a half-glazed door.