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

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26512868

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.

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