Chigwell Grammar School

Details

TQ 49 SW
4/16
28.6.54


CHIGWELL
HIGH ROAD WEST SIDE
Chigwell grammar School(formerly listed as The grammar school)


G II

School, c.1620, extended in C18 and C19. Red brick,English bond,roofed with handmade red clay tiles.The original block is aligned NE-SW, aspect SE,and comprised the English School at the SW end, the Latin School, and the Latin Master's house at the NE end.Three external chimney stacks on rear wall and one internal stack in front pitch of roof in Latin Master's house.Crosswing to NE with chimney stack at SE end, C18, and two parallel ranges to NE, C19.Rear wing at SW end, C19. Porch, C19. Two storeys with attics. SE elevation, C19 porch of red brick with stone quoins and stone doorway with four-centred head and crest dated 1629, blocking and partly covering the original twin doorways into the English and Latin schools, the brick Tudor arches partly visible.Three large windows of 12 lights, mullioned and transomed, inaccurate reproductions of the original C17 windows.Two tripartite double-hung sash windows of four-fifteen-four lights in Venetian groups,C18. First floor,two windows of four lights with splayed mullions and surrounds of plastered brick,original,each of two fixed lights, and two wrought iron casements with rectangular leading.Small blocked aperture between them.Parapet with stone coping.Three flat-roofed dormers with C20 casement windows. The brickwork contains some blue flared headers in random arrangement, and is repaired in places.The rear chimney stacks are substantially original to eaves height, upper parts rebuilt. All the ilw and SW windows.are C19/20 reproductions except one, blocked,visible above the C19 extension at the SW end, with ovolo-moulded brick mullions.SW elevation of SE wing, plum brick, Flemish bond.Six panel door in doorcase of two engaged Doric columns with dentilled open pediment, fanlight with curved geometrical tracery,two stone steps with moulded nosings and wrought iron shoescraper.Two double-hung sash windows on ground floor,three on first floor,each of twelve lights,with flat arches of gauged red brick, C18.In the English School,now converted to a library,two tiebeams with shallow arched braces,moulded pendants, queen posts shaped like flat balusters.Hearth re-bricked inside.Of the other rear hearths, one is blocked, the other now forms a seat recess.The school is well illustrated before the C19 alterations in an exterior drawing by J.C. Buckler,C.1820, and an exterior and interior by F.W. Fairholt, C.1850 (Stott, plates 13, 14, 15).Stott (p.26) argues convincingly that although the foundation deed is dated 1629, the school was built soon after Archbishop Harsnett purchased the site in 1619, and in operation by 1623.Sufficient of the original structure and detail remains to be a valuable record of architectural features of that period. RCHM 6.

Listing NGR: TQ4415093863

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

118584

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
An Inventory of Essex Central and South West, (1921)

End of official list entry

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