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

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26394664

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

• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)