Royal Grammar School (Old School)

Details

SD4861
1685-1/5/114

LANCASTER
EAST ROAD (north side)
Royal Grammar School (Old School)

(Formerly Listed as: EAST ROAD Royal Grammar School (old building only))

18/02/70

II
Grammar school and former headmaster's house. 1851. By Sharpe and Paley; extended considerably and sympathetically during the rest of the C19 with buildings designed by Paley and Austin, including the four bay block to the right, dated 1887. Snecked sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings and slate roofs. Picturesquely symmetrical seven-bay plan with the entrance in the fifth bay and a tower to the left, behind which (at right angles to the main block) stands the former headmaster's house.

The main block has two storeys above a basement; to left of the entrance was originally a covered playground and is indicated by three low four-centred arches (now blocked). The upper storey is an attic with six coped gables, of which the one in the fifth bay, over the entrance, is higher and wider and carries a crown finial. The doorway has two-centred moulded arch under a hoodmould; to either side is a small window with a cusped head, and above is an ornate niche containing a statue of the young Queen Victoria. The main ground-floor windows, four to the left and two to the right, have three arch-headed lights and a transom under a square hoodmould and a relieving arch. The first floor window above the doorway has four lights of equal height with a square niche above. The other windows have three arch-headed lights, of which the centre one is higher. Under them all runs a string course. To the left of a strongly-projecting buttress rises a square four-storey battlemented tower with a pyramidal roof and windows corresponding to those in the main block on the level of the basement, ground floor and attic, plus a paired arch-headed window in the top storey.

The former headmaster's house also picturesquely asymmetrical: of two storeys and gabled attics, its plan follows medieval precedent with a two storey hall range, with the doorway on the left, placed between a narrower left-hand cross-wing with a two storey canted bay window and a two bay right-hand cross-wing. The chimney stacks are on the gables and between the hall range and the left wing. All the windows are mullioned, and those on the ground floor also have transoms.

INTERIOR: to left of the entrance, the Old School Library (originally the 'Big School') is a tall, three-bay room with a further bay (under the tower) beyond a pair of two-centred, double-chamfered arches, of which one chamfer dies into the octagonal pier. The window of this end bay has glass, by W Wailes and dated 1852, containing six medallions showing scenes from English history, eg St Alban, King Canute, William the Conqueror and Hereward. The ceiling has exposed joists of thin section, chamfered with plain stops, borne by cross-beams supported on cusped brackets.Behind the library is the staircase, whose solid stone steps are carried on iron beams and strings and whose iron balusters are reminiscent of Gothic colonnettes. The attic rooms, which contain dormitories, are ceiled at the level of the upper collar. This is supported with a king post and diagonal struts carried on a lower collar.


HISTORY: Before 1852 the school was housed in a purpose-built school-house, dated 1682, which stood to the west of St Mary's Church (qv)

Listing NGR: SD4836361536

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

383145

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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