Summary
Small, single roomed rural school house, circa 1870.
Reasons for Designation
* Historical: A demonstration of the Victorian commitment to educational provision, providing a school building to serve a very small and scattered farming community;
* Architectural: Although tiny, this single celled school building exhibits architectural pretensions such as the unusual detailing to the windows and the employment of stone slates for the roof instead of the more locally typical roofing of pan tiles or Welsh slate.
History
The construction date of the school, or how it was originally established is unknown, although the current building is thought to date to 1870-1875. An 1823 directory lists 3 schoolmasters in the parish, but they may have all been based in other townships rather than in Troutsdale which had a scattered population of 45 at this date. The 1854 1:10560 Ordnance Survey map includes a label "Troutsdale School" in the general area of the current building, however the school building itself appears to be marked within the field just to the west of the current building. The next edition, the 1:2500 map of 1892, clearly marks the current building, and gives no indication of an earlier building to the west. However on this map it is labelled as disused, possibly because a new Board school had been established in nearby Brompton. At this time the population of the Troutsdale township extended to 6 farmers and their families. Maps between 1912 and 1958 all mark and label the school without the disused qualifier, so its use as a school is thought to have been revived. The school is thought to have finally closed around 1950.
Details
School, circa 1870-75. Brick in English garden wall bond with the lower part in coursed stonework making up the fall in the ground surface, stone slate roof laid to diminishing courses with a simple stone ridge.
EXTERIOR: the north-west side, facing the road, has a triple light window to the left of a small open porch with a lancet headed doorway and a flat roof. The south-east side has a centrally placed triple light window. The northern gable has a central, stepped chimney stack flanked by single windows. The southern gable has a large, high window with jambs forming a 2 centred arch, and a stone cill. At the time of the survey the window retained glazing bars but little glazing. The gable is topped by a plinth supporting an ornate iron cross.
All of the windows, apart from the south gable window, are similarly detailed: Internally they have typical cambered arches of rubbed bricks, but externally the springs are replaced with finely dressed stones with simple deep chamfers that turn the window heads into shouldered arches. The chamfer to the stone springs is carried around the brick reveals and the bricks forming the jambs and cills are slightly broken forward from the wall face to imitate stone quoining. The windows in the side walls are in the form of 3 light mullioned windows. At the time of the survey, none of the inward opening timber casements to the windows survived complete.
Modern maps depict a small, later extension to the northern gable of the school house that no longer survives. This is believed to have been a timber toilet block that lacked plumbing, utilising chamber pots instead.
INTERIOR: the building is a single room with unplastered walls which retain evidence that they were originally white washed, with the lower portion coloured pale green up to a joint course at dado height that was marked in black. The room is open to the simple purlined roof structure. There is a floor board floor. At the time of the survey the fireplace was missing leaving the opening intact.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: the cylindrical stone pillar on the roadside to the north east of the school house is not thought to be associated with the school and is not included in the listing. It is one of at least three similar pillars within the valley that are thought to have been erected in the mid-C19 by the Whartons of Rock House Farm as bollards to guide farm vehicles.
