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

• Wikidata Q26541020

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