Description

SE 7803-7903 EPWORTH HIGH STREET
(south side)

20/78 School adjoining Wesleyan
Memorial Church

GV II

School. 1888-9 by Charles Bell. Rock-faced ashlar to front and sides,
yellow brick to rear; ashlar dressings throughout. Welsh slate roofs.
Rectangular on plan: schoolroom with 3 adjoining single-room wings to north,
main entrance lobby and covered annexe to right adjoining Wesleyan Memorial
Church (qv), small hall and outhouses adjoining to rear. Forms south side
of courtyard. Tall single-storey schoolroom with lower single-storey front
wings and adjoining ranges. North front: 3 adjoining single-bay wings
flanked by main entrance lobby to right, secondary entrance set back to
left. Chamfered plinth, quoins. Gabled wings each have single 3-light
ashlar mullioned-and-transomed window with pointed lights beneath pointed
rusticated arches, linked by a flush ashlar band at impost-eaves level.
Central gable is topped by a tall stepped stack with ashlar offsets and
triple cylindrical shafts; flanking wings have string courses and blind
quatrefoil panels beneath stone-coped gables with shaped kneelers and
trefoil finials. Low single-storey range to right has main entrance
breaking forward with double board doors with ornate wrought ironwork in
pointed double-chamfered arch with hoodmould and carved stops beneath coped
gable; twin lancets to right with hoodmould. Section to right adjoining
church has 3-light mullioned-and-transomed window with pointed lights.
Secondary entrance to schoolroom to left has chamfered rounded-trefoil arch
with pointed hoodmould, and board door with ornate wrought ironwork, beneath
moulded string course and coped parapet. East gable end: schoolroom has
large pointed 4-light plate-traceried window with pointed transomed lights
beneath moulded string course and foiled round light, hoodmould and head
stops; pierced quatrefoil above. South side (rear) has projecting central
gabled wing with traceried ashlar oculus, flanked by single buttresses and
3-light mullioned-and-transomed windows to each side beneath segmental
arches. School room and smaller hall adjoining to east both have coped
gables with shaped kneelers and trefoil finials. Interior: largely
unaltered, with corbelled arch-braced roof to schoolroom, panelled ceilings,
panelled doors, etc. Part of an unusually ornate group of Methodist
buildings, erected in commemoration of the founder of Methodism, John Wesley
(1703-91), and the Wesley family of Epworth. Included for group value.

Listing NGR: SE7812203837

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26321482

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings and Other Heritage Assets
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey