Reasons for Designation
Church Cottage, originally a National School, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* It is of special architectural and historical interest as a substantially unaltered example of a rare and relatively early National School.
* The use of early Gothic Revival style connects it both with its Church of England foundation, and with other listed examples of National Schools, while the use of local building materials roots it in more vernacular traditions.
* It has group value with the Grade I listed St Mary Magdalen's Church.
Details
379/0/10009
WIGGENHALL ST MARY MAGDALEN
CHURCH ROAD
Church Cottage including boundary walls, railings and beehive shaped stone pillars
25-SEP-09
GV
II
School and attached schoolmaster's house, built 1841; extended late C19; converted into a single dwelling in 1983. Carrstone, with contrasting cream brick dressings; later C19 extension to the east of brown brick; slate roofs.
PLAN: The original plan was T shaped, and consisted of a single storey school hall with a two storey schoolmaster's house forming a cross-wing at the west end; there is a single storey lean-to structure attached to the west elevation and north-west corner. The later addition of the hall at the east end forms a second cross-wing balancing the schoolmaster's house.
EXTERIOR: The school is built in an early Gothic Revival style, with Tudor arches to the doors, and with brick hood moulds to both windows and doors. The main entrance (to the earlier hall) is through a canted porch, and in the gable end of the later hall is a wide Tudor arched door below a mullioned overlight. This hall also has a secondary door set into the corner where it joins the earlier building. The quoins and door and window surrounds are of cream brick, creating a flushwork pattern with rectangles of stone enclosed by brick around the main entrance. The windows to the halls (two each to south, north and east elevations) are casements with wooden mullions; those to the schoolmaster's house are modern replacements. There is a chimney above the centre of the house, and a small bellcote on the east end of the roof ridge of the earlier hall.
INTERIOR: The schoolmaster's house consists of two rooms each to ground and first floor, separated by a steep central stair which rises between them. Windows in the west wall of the ground floor rooms let in light borrowed from the lean-to kitchen and utility area. The rooms retain chimney breasts, but no original fireplaces survive.
The entrance to the earlier school hall is through the canted porch, and leads into a lobby with doors to either side of a central partition. To the west is a living room with false thermal ceiling and wooden gallery. To the east a similar space has been subdivided into small rooms. The later hall has been divided into two spaces, the smaller of which, to the north, has a lowered ceiling; the front section retains its original plank ceiling. A plaque over the door between the earlier and later school halls reads 'National School Erected AD 1841'.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: There is a stone wall to the north which encloses a back yard. Attached to the wall at the central point is a small square structure, originally a privy, but which now houses the boiler. Iron railings running between five beehive shaped stone pillars form the south garden boundary, although two of the pillars are modern replicas of the originals.
HISTORY: Church Cottage lies immediately to the south of St Mary Magdalen's Church (Grade I) and was built as a National School in 1841; a plaque on the original external east wall records the event. This plaque is now inside a later extension to the building, which is shown on the 1885 OS map and may have been erected following the 1870 Forster Education Act. The school was closed shortly after the Second World War, the cottage sold for private occupation and the remainder of the building used as a village hall. The whole building was purchased by the current owner in 1983 and the halls modified and internally partitioned for domestic use, although the plan of the schoolmaster's house remains intact.
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: Church Cottage, originally a National School, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* It is of special architectural and historical interest as a substantially unaltered example of a rare and relatively early National School.
* The use of early Gothic revival style connects it both with its Church of England foundation, and with other listed examples of National Schools, while the use of local building materials roots it in more vernacular traditions.
* It has group value with the Grade I listed St Mary Magdalen's Church.
