Description

TL 4114 HUNSDON HIGH STREET
(west side)
Hunsdon village

7/23 No 43, Village Hall
and No 47 (Formerly
24.1.67 listed as Village Hall)
opposite Acorn Street

GV II

School, now village hall and 2 houses adjoining. Early C18,
incorporating possibly older part at rear, altered to present
appearance in early C19. Timberframed plastered symmetrical
cross-shaped building with steep red tiled roofs, facing S. 2 2-
storeys hipped roof domestic wings flank a higher single storey
former schoolroom with jettied half-timbered gable end to street.
It became the Village Hall c1924 and was extended to the rear in
red brick incorporating the old brick walls of a lower building.
Modern low rear extension not of special interest. The lefthand
wing, No 43, is now a separate house: No 47 on the right is the
caretaker's house. These wings each have a 3-light wooden
casement window on each floor, a side entrance with C19 flush
panelled door, and a large red brick rectangular central chimney
through the ridge at the junction with the hall, topped by 2 tall
grey brick C19 octagonal shafts with ornamental caps and bases.
Each has 1 main room on each floor with stair and lobby on the
side wall, but a shallow 2 storeys C19 rear extension under a
continuation of the main roof gives more space. At No 43, this
is timberframed and weatherboarded but at No 47 (the former
teacher's house) in grey brick. The lofty schoolroom is probably
little-changed from the single room 'of fair size' noted by the
Schools Inspector in 1855 (HLHS (1979) 55). It has a 6-bay
arc-hbraced collar roof carried on simple corbels. The lower part
of the front wall with its central doorway are probably early
C18. The wide doorway has a shortened panelled canopy carried on
enriched console brackets and a moulded dentilled cornice with
enriched mouldings. Early C19 reeded pilasters have been added
and a small rectangular window each side with a small-paned cast
iron casement. there is an C18 ovolo moulded door with raised
and fielded panels, between schoolroom and teacher's house. The
present jettied gable wall with a striking pattern of exposed
timbers, a large mullioned and transomed leaded central window,
cusped bargeboard and roll moulded bressumer was probably an
alteration of c1837 (date on the chimney of No 41) when a larger
composition with jettied pavilions to right and left was formed,
linked by high plastered screen walls to the cruciform central
block. The jetty has long been supported on 4 wooden posts. By
1846, the school had joined the Church of England National
Society and remained a National (Church) School up to 1924 (HLHS
(1979) 55). An historic C18 estate school altered as the
centrepiece of a symmetrical Gothic group in the early C19 and
still in public use. The centrepiece of the village Conservation
Area.

Listing NGR: TL4174614124

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26395928

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

• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)