Former Grammar School

Description: Simple gothic revival style. Brick with stone dressings and slate roof, surmounted by a spirelet over the entrance; axial stack in the angle of main range and cross wing. Comprises main range with gabled cross wing to left, and hipped roofed tower advanced to right. Main range articulated as 3 bays divided by buttresses, with 3-light steeply arched traceried windows. Continuous string course over the ground floor, and central upper window (paired foiled lancets, blocked) contained in a coped gabled dormer breaking the eaves line. Traces of a further upper window now removed visible in the left hand bay. Cross wing to left has 3-light steeply arched stone traceried window to ground floor, and paired foiled lancets above the string course. Narrow lancet light in gable apex. Return elevation has paired banded windows to ground floor, each with 4 foiled lancets. The advanced tower to the right has tall, tiered window now blocked, but with fragments of the original tracery surviving at the head, which is set beneath a steep dormer gable. The pyramidal roof of the tower is surmounted by a fleche.

A good example of a mid C19 gothic revival school in an urban context.

References: Eva Bredsdorff, Welshpool in Old Photographs, 1993, p.91; Ion Trant, The Changing Face of Welshpool, 1986, p.106; 'General Plan of the District of Welchpool Prepared for the Purposes of the Public Health Act, 1854', National Library of Wales.