Description

TL 3629 BUNTINGFORD HIGH STREET (east side)

7/11 No 20 (Layston Court) 19.10.51

GV II

Grammar school and master's house, now one house. School built 1630-3 for Elizabeth Freeman of Aspenden Hall, re-endowed 1684 by Bishop Seth Ward and Lady Jane Barkham, house early C18 added at right angles. Used as school up to 1877, subsequently altered and S wing added. School in red brick and English-bond with stone windows and steep old red tile roof. House timber framed and plastered with a hipped old red tile roof stucco S wing extension. A large rectangular brick school building facing W with moulded gable parapets and unusual projecting gable chimneys with short octagonal shafts linked by a heavy capping. Chamfered plinth and a tall, single-storey front with deep eaves band, transomed ovolo moulded windows and a fine brick-pedimented, rusticated, round-arched central entrance. Hollow-chamfered tie- beams supported by curved braces from hollow-chamfered wallposts carry the butt-purlin oak roof with collar-trusses. Scratch- moulded panelling in N bay of 3, may indicate the original master's accommodation specified in the 1633 Will as under one roof with the school room for 25 boys. An attic floor was inserted with large gabled dormer windows before 1830 (Buckler dwg. in HRO). An early C20 lean-to porch covers the pedimented entrance, with a bay window to the right, and the brick work of the front plastered. The rear is less altered but the stone transomed ovolo-moulded windows may replace plastered brick ones noted by VCH c.1914. Early C18 master's house of 2 storeys, 4 windows wide with flush box sash windows, taller on Ground floor, of 6/6 panes. Tall Doric pilastered wooden doorcase with fluted pilasters and keystone beneath triglyph frieze and panelled hood. Door leads into a lofty Ground floor room possibly a former schoolroom. (RCHM (1911)139: VCH (1914)80: Pevsner (1977)118: RCHM Typescript).

Listing NGR: TL3626529496

External Links

• Wikidata Q26394664

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Recommended Books

• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  Harrow on the Hill: A photographic portrayal of listed buildings and structures (Historic Buildings Picture Guides)
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)