Description

ILMINSTER

ST3614 COURT BARTON
1939-1/7/18 (East side)
23/09/50 No.28
(Formerly Listed as:
COURT BARTON
(East side)
The Old Library and No.2)

GV II*

Formerly known as: No.2 Girls' Grammar School COURT BARTON.
Grammar School, now a dwelling. c1586, altered c1840 and
c1980. Ham Hill stone ashlar with a double-pitch slate roof.
Originally a single-unit plan, it was doubled c1840.
Single-storey with attic; 4-window range. 2-storeys to the
rear. 3 very large windows to the left of the facade are
4-light with ovolo-moulded stone mullions and transoms and C19
cast-iron lights with small panes. Over the door to the right
is a 2-light mullioned window with similar lights. The
entrance-door, to a lobby shared by No.29 to the right, has a
Tudor arch with foliate spandrels. Semicircular stone sundial
dated 1586 on a bracket.
INTERIOR: The schoolroom remains full-height, the mullions and
transoms of the window are unpainted and some of the glass has
C18 and C19 schoolroom graffiti. The large window to the right
now lights a c1980 staircase. A sky-light with margin panes in
the roof-valley lights the stairs; the rear range has 6-panel
doors and 8/8-pane sashes.
HISTORY: In 1549 Humphrey Walrond and Henry Greenfylde, both
of Sea, purchased a building on the site (then Charity Land)
and conveyed it to a body of Trustees. The schoolhouse was
constructed c1584 and there may have been early alterations.
Between 1822 and 1855 the Rev. John Allen brought great
prestige to the school and it was renowned for preparing boys
for Eton. In 1873 'religious disabilities' were removed; it
was no longer mandatory to have a clergyman as headmaster, and
the institution of a new school, The Greenfylde School (qv),
on church lands to the south began. In 1878 the old building
became a grammar school for girls. A plaque to commemorate
this is part of the wall (qv) fronting the building, listed
separately.
(VCH: Somerset: 452).

Listing NGR: ST3603714614

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17554660

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

• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)
• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)