Description

TQ 56 43 BIDBOROUGH HIGH STREET (south end)

11/17 School House and the
Old School

GV II

School, used as village hall, and schoolmaster's house. 1856 (Kelly's
Directory of Kent (1891)), erected at a cost of ?659 8s. (Skinner, p.27) some
C20 additions to the master's house. Red brick with blue headers and
sandstone dressings; peg-tile roofs; brick stacks. Tudor style.

Plan: Irregular north-facing range sited south of and below the church.
Small 2-bay schoolroom to the right (west), heated from a lateral stack on the
north side with an entrance block to the left. The schoolmaster's house,
adjoining at the left, has a porch on the north side.

Exterior: 2 storey house, single-storey schoolroom. Asymmetrical 4 window
north elevation, the master's house set forward from the school and entrance
block and gabled to the front at the right end. The entrance block is also
gabled to the front, the schoolroom is parallel to the road. Symmetrical 2-
window north front to the schoolroom, the lateral stack with set-offs in
thecentre, flanked by stone 1-light trefoil-headed windows with gabled
ventilators in the roof. The right return of the schoolroom (west end) has 2
2-light trefoil-headed windows below an elongated quatrefoil and a 3-light
rear window with trefoil-headed lights. The entrance block has a shouldered
stone doorway to the right and a 2-light window with trefoil-headed lights to
the left with a trefoil in the gable. The master's house is plainer with
square-headed stone windows in the block gabled to the front. To the left of
this the roof of the extreme left hand block is carried down as a catslide to
the porch with a square-headed stone doorway. The left end of the master's
house and right end of the schoolroom have flat-roofed single-storey C20
additions.

Interior: The schoolroom retains its original tie beam roof construction with
queen posts with straight braces and arch braces between tie and collar.

The land for the school was given by the Rev. Sir Charles Hardinge in 1853 and
the finance for the building was raised by subscription with a grant of £178
from the Council of Education. The building was supposed to accommodate 60
pupils with the children of labourers paying 2d per week and those of
tradesmen and farmers paying 4d per week (Skinner).

An attractive C19 school, group value with the church and Rock Cottages
(q.v.).

Skinner, F.A., Bidborough. a Parish History (1986 edn.).

Listing NGR: TQ5651143140

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26541020

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

• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)