Description

HERTFORD

TL3212NE CHURCHFIELDS
817-1/17/48 (North side)
10/02/50 The Longmore Centre
(Formerly Listed as:
Hale's Grammar School)

II

Grammar school, now teacher training centre and County Council
Offices. Early C17, with C19 alterations, extended 1930-31,
repaired 1958 after war damage in 1944. Red-brown brick, laid
to English and Flemish bonds, with C20 clay tiled roofs, tall
double shafted octagonal brick chimneys to left of south
porch, above external chimneybreast, with moulded base and
oversailing caps (a C19 conjectural restoration).
PLAN/EXTERIOR: 7-bay open classroom, now subdivided, with
attic above; and a 2-storey central gabled cross wing. Ground
floor has four C19 timber 3-light moulded mullioned windows
with oblong and fishscale patterned leaded lights. These are
set below brick dripmoulds and have moulded brick sills. There
are similar windows to ground and attic floors on end
elevations, and on south elevation, together with smaller
scale 2 and 3-light windows of similar detail on projecting
cross wing. Doorway on north side has four-centred arch with
moulded brick intrados and jambs, and external dripmould.
South porch now covered by flat roofed link to south wing. The
link and wing were built in 1930-31, and are not of special
interest.
Late C19 hexagonal timber cupola, with lead covered base and
lead covered ogee profile cap on ridge over north porch, and 2
large gabled brick dormers, with 3-light casement windows,
below brick dripmoulds.
INTERIOR: although subdivided into 2, the main classroom
retains its appearance as restored in mid C19, cased beams,
boarded dado, and windows with pegged frames with ovolo
mouldings.
In the south porch is a late C19 Jacobean style stair, closed
string, newel with finial caps, column and bobbin balusters
and moulded handrail, arcaded landing.
West attic room has 3 bay division with exposed collars and
rafters and butt purlins set alternatively up and down, east
attic roof with C19 trusses, repaired after war damage; roof
over west has halved and pegged rafters, no ridge board, and
mortices for collars at higher level from present ceiling.
HISTORICAL NOTE: Richard Hale of King's Walden, Herts, founded
the school in 1617 under letters patent granted by James I,

and it was subsequently known as 'Hale's Grammar School'. The
school was to be administered by the Mayor and 9 Chief
Burgesses of Hertford and their successors.
By the 19th century the school was still using the single open
classroom, with long rows of desks and a master's desk at each
end. Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913), scientist and
co-discoverer with Darwin of the theory of natural selection
was educated at Hale's School in the 1830s. The school came
under control of the County Council about 1900 and was known
as Hertford Grammar School. By 1930 the premises had become
totally inadequate, and a new County Grammar School was built
in Hale Road. The original front door with its arched and
moulded frame, and the date '1667' in studded nailheads was
removed to the new school, where it remains.
The old Grammar School was extended in 1931 and renamed the
Longmore Senior Girls School, after Sir Charles Elton
Longmore, Clerk to Hertfordshire County Council, 1894-1930.
This school later became the annexe to the new Secondary
Modern School built on London Road in 1957. The east wing had
been damaged in a 1944 air raid, and was left partly derelict
after the war until restoration in 1958. The building was used
for a teacher centre and County Council Offices at the time of
inspection.
(Turnor L: History of Hertford: Hertford: 1830-: 332-335;
Victoria History of the Counties of England: Hertfordshire:
London: 1902-1912: 490; Royal Commission on Historical
Monuments (England): An Inventory of the Historical Monuments
of Hertfordshire: London: 1910-: 112; East Herts
Archaeological Society Newsletter: Hertford: 1949-1958;
Hertfordshire Countryside: Moodey G: Old buildings in the
County Town: Letchworth: 1946-1973: 45-47; The Buildings of
England: Pevsner N: Hertfordshire: Harmondsworth: 1977-: 187).

Listing NGR: TL3282812530

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26559192

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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