Little Barford School

Summary

Former school, built in 1872, with a porch added around 1880.

Reasons for Designation

Little Barford school, built in 1872 with a porch added around 1880, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* as a compact Victorian schoolroom with elegant architectural detailing, which complements the surrounding estate buildings of the Alington estate;
* for the high proportion of survival of the historic interior of the schoolroom, which retains an distinctive hammerbeam roof, wall panelling, cupboards, a fireplace, and numbered coat hooks for the infant schoolchildren.

Historic interest:
* for the important role the school played in the lives of village children, and 35 children and their teacher who were evacuated from Walthamstow to Little Barford for the duration of the Second World War (1939-45).

Group value:
* for the strong historical and functional group value the village school holds with the former estate buildings of the Alington estate, including listed mid-C19 estate cottages and the manor house.

History

At the time of the Domesday survey (1086) Little Barford contained two manors. The larger of the two, which had a watermill on the river, was owned by Ramsey Abbey from the C12 until the dissolution of the abbey in 1539. By the mid-C18 it was owned by a Mr Hutchinson and in 1829 the estate passed to Rev. William Alington whose descendants remained owners throughout the C20. The smaller manor was part of the manor of Eaton (later Eaton Socon) and until at least the late C13 the Beauchamp family were lords of the manor. It was sold to Henry South in 1706 who later sold it to Mr Hutchinson, thus bringing the two manors into one estate. After the Alington family took over the estate in 1829, Lord Alington commenced a programme of estate improvements in the mid-C19, including the construction of a new manor house on the site of the rectory, a new rectory, estate buildings, and a school on Barford Road.

The Elementary Education Act of 1870 set the framework for schooling of all children between the ages of 5 and 12 in England and Wales. A school was established by Julius Alington on Barford Road in 1872, and was ‘one room unattached’. Serving the Alington estate, the private school was run in line with Church of England principles, and was also used for Sunday School. A detached toilet block was constructed to the west, and it appears a porch may have been added to the schoolroom around 1880, as its projection appears to be shown on the 1884 Ordnance Survey map. The schoolroom and its porch are shown on a detailed plan of 1904 with a playground to the west between the ‘schoolroom’ and the ‘village street’, and the detached toilet block to the east.

Numbers attending the village school remained low and it closed in 1932. The school temporarily reopened between 1939 and 1945 for children who lived in the village and evacuees from Walthamstow; in October 1939 there were 41 pupils, 35 of whom were evacuees, all taught by a teacher from Walthamstow. The school closed in 1945, and the village children returned to their schools in Sandy and Tempsford, and the evacuees and their teacher to Walthamstow. The school building has since stood vacant.

Details

Former school, built in 1872, with a porch added around 1880.

MATERIALS: the roof has a clay tile covering and the walls are constructed of gault brick with red sandstone dressings.

PLAN: the building is L-shaped on plan, comprising a rectangular-plan school room with a rectangular-plan porch added to the north end of its west elevation.

EXTERIOR: The single-storey schoolroom has a pitched roof with a clay tile covering, featuring two decorative bands of scalloped tiles to its east and west slopes. The walls are constructed of gault brick laid in Flemish bond, with a dogtooth eaves course, red sandstone quoins, a continuous red sandstone sill course, and a chamfered plinth course; the gable ends also have a red sandstone platband over their windows. The front (west) elevation to Barford Road has two window openings, and the north and south gables each have a window opening, all shallow-arched with polychromatic gault brick and red sandstone voussoirs. Each window has two casements of three vertical lights separated by a central timber mullion. At the north end of the front elevation, a single-storey lean-to porch was added around 1880, and has a shallow-arched porch opening with a recessed ledged-and-braced timber door, and a small casement window to the left; the rear of the porch has a two-over-two casement window. Similar to the earlier schoolroom, the porch has a clay tile roof covering, dogtooth eaves course, and polychromatic voussoirs to the window and porch openings. The rear (east) elevation of the schoolroom has a central gault-brick chimneystack, the top of which has been removed.

INTERIOR: Internally, the porch has 35 numbered coat hooks at child height in two rows on its east, west and north walls, and a hand basin in the south-west corner. The interior of the school room has a hammerbeam roof, with two decorative trusses resting on stone corbels, and exposed rafters, purlins and wall plates. The walls are of painted brick, with a wooden picture rail, and wooden cladding to dado height. The floor is covered with wooden floorboards. The door opening from the porch has a pointed arch and a chamfered brick surround with wall cladding to dado height. The north wall has eight fitted cupboards under the window. The east wall has a central fireplace with a stone surround, later blocked, with a cast-iron burner added in front in the early C20. To the left of the fireplace are four cupboards to dado height.

Sources

Websites
'Parishes: Little Barford', in A History of the County of Bedford: Volume 2, ed. William Page (1908), pp. 206-209, accessed 01 November 2022 from http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/beds/vol2/pp206-209
Bedfordshire Archives Community Histories, ‘Little Barford School’, accessed 01 November 2022 from https://bedsarchives.bedford.gov.uk/CommunityHistories/LittleBarford/LittleBarfordSchool.aspx

Other
Paul Stamper Heritage, ‘An outline assessment of structures and earthworks at Little Barford, Bedfordshire’, September 2022
Bidwells, ‘Heritage Impact Assessment’, October 2021

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