Description

LICHFIELD

SK1109SE ST JOHN STREET 1094-1/8/165 (North East side) 05/02/52 No.45 Lichfield District Council Offices (part) and attached wall and gates (Formerly Listed as: ST JOHN STREET (North East side) No.45 Rural Council House and Council Chamber)

GV II

Schoolmaster's and boarders' house for Lichfield Grammar School, with former school room to rear. 1682 with C18 rear wing, school room and front wall of c1849, by Thomas Johnson and Son of Lichfield, with C18 wall to right return. Brick; hipped tile roof with 2 brick stacks. Double-depth plan. Early Georgian style. 2 storeys with attic; symmetrical 5-window range. Plaster plinth, 2 brick platt bands and top modillioned timber cornice. Entrance has big moulded doorcase with pulvinated frieze and cornice, battened door. Windows have rubbed brick flat arches over plate glass sashes to ground floor, small-paned cross casements in moulded frames to 1st floor; 2 hipped dormers have 2-light casements with iron opening casements. Right return similar: 2 platt bands and modillioned cornice; entrance with rubbed brick flat arch and overlight to half-glazed door and flanking blocked windows, window to right end of 4 lights with 4-centred heads; stucco wing to right has two 4-light windows as to left, one altered for entrance; cross-casements to 1st floor. School room of brick with ashlar dressings; tile roof with coped gables. Single-storey, 3-window, range with cross wing right end. Sill course and top cornice, shaped gable with finial to wing. Entrance in wing has 4-centred head with foliate spandrels, battened door; 3-light double-chamfered-mullioned windows with elliptical heads and label moulds, 2 have 2 upper lights with shaped gablets; wing has 1st floor oriel with 1:3:1-light transomed window. 3 rainwater heads. Return and rear similar with later alterations and additions. INTERIOR: house has central open-well spiral staircase with turned balusters; 1st floor has exposed timber-framed partition walls and ovolo-moulded beams, 2-panel doors; attic has exposed trusses with curved principals; school room has hammer beam roof and 2 fireplaces with 4-centred heads, one fireplace has timber surround with paired Tuscan columns; later council chamber furniture including canopied seat; wrought-iron scrolled chandeliers. Front wall, which extends approx. 31m to right and returns for approx. 47m to rear, has stone coping and cross-slits with gablets, gateway with elliptical head and coping has enriched wrought-iron gate; right end paired wrought-iron gates and piers are later; return wall of brick in 2 phases, following the medieval town ditch and the parish boundary. The Grammar School was founded as part of the Hospital of St John (qv) in 1495, moving to this site in 1577. Many famous men were pupils here, including Samuel Johnson, David Garrick and Joseph Addison. The school room was built on the site of one of 1577, and the buildings became the offices and council chamber of Lichfield Rural District Council in 1920. (Clayton H: Cathedral City: Lichfield: 1977-: P.71-2; Lichfield District Council: District Council House - Lichfield, A Short History: Lichfield).

Listing NGR: SK1175409250

External Links

• Wikidata Q26512868

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