Building record 2230/0/8 - Old School House

Old School House was built in 1823. Early drawings of the school show it as a small, thatched L-shaped building including a small two up and two down house. In 1865 the school was enlarged and the old schoolroom was replaced with a large hall and the school master's house was enlarged. The school was modified again in 1901 replacing the porch with a linking corridor. The school closed in the 1950s and was later converted into dwellings. The building is of cream brick with steeply pitched roofs now covered in concrete and clay tiles. The Old School House was assessed for designation in 2012 but failed to meet the required criteria.

{1} An early C19 Elementary school, enlarged and rebuilt in the later C19 and early C20.

According to the Education Register of 1833 a school was founded in Lilford in 1823, for the education of both boys and girls, under the patronage of Thomas Powys, 2nd Baron Lilford, a member of the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church of England and Wales. The date of 'about 1845' given in the Victoria County History (1930) for the establishment of an Elementary School by Lady Lilford appears to contradict this, but may refer to a later re-founding of the school. A sketch of the early C19 school drawn by George Clark, possibly dating to 1825 when he is recorded as having visited Lilford, shows a small, thatched, apparently L-shaped building, presumably the original schoolroom and master's house. The gable end of the latter is similar in some ways to that of the present house, but with deep eaves and decorative bargeboards, and with a decorative finial above the ridge. The chimneys are also more ornate, and the stack would presumably have served the early schoolroom as well as the house. The pattern of glazing of both the narrow first floor window and ground floor bay window also appears to be different to the present windows, and are likely to have been similar to the diamond lead-paned windows that survive in the school hall cupboard and in the house stairwell, dated to the early C19. The house was small, two up and two down, with a kitchen in the south corner room.

In 1865 the school was enlarged by the 4th Baron Lilford, at the recommendation of an education inspector, in order to accommodate the growing number of children attending. The old schoolroom was replaced with a large new hall, while the schoolmaster's house appears to have been extended to the north-east and the roof modified (although the covering of concrete tiles suggests that the removal of the thatch and bargeboards may be a later alteration). An undated plan of the extended house and hall appears to document the additions to the house and the construction of the toilets and wash house to the north-east, shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1886. The plan also indicates that the kitchen was moved to the new north corner room, as the south room became a thoroughfare to the school hall. The porches over the front door to the house and the shared entrance to school hall and house may also both belong to this date. The direct entrance to both the 1865 and early C19 schoolrooms was originally through a porch in the south-west elevation (thatched in the 1825 sketch), but this was replaced by a linking corridor to the infants' classroom, built in 1901. Shortly afterwards most of the original lead-paned windows in the main hall were replaced with hopper-opening windows to allow greater light and better ventilation. The life of the school is well documented by school log books dating from 1864 onwards, held at the Northamptonshire Records Office.

The school closed in the 1950s, and was converted into two dwellings, although it has until recently been occupied as a single dwelling. The wash house and toilet block to the north-east of the master's house, shown on the 1886 Ordnance Survey map, and possibly contemporary with the 1865 school hall and master's house, were recently demolished in advance of work to convert the building into two dwellings once more.
Elementary school and schoolmaster's house, the latter early C19, modified and extended in 1865, the school hall 1865 with an additional classroom built in 1901. Built of cream stock brick, with steeply pitched roofs, the house and early hall covered in concrete tiles, the 1865 and 1901 extensions covered in clay tiles. One short section of wall, to the north-east, is built of coursed stonework.

PLAN: the original 1865 plan consists of the rectangular hall with the irregular square of the schoolmaster's house attached to the south-east half of the hall's north-east elevation. Between the two is a narrow connecting section containing a passage and store-cupboard; the passage gives access to both house and school hall. A tall chimney stack stands on the ridge of the roof between the house and connecting passage. The 1901 classroom forms a wing at a right angle to the hall's south-west elevation.

EXTERIOR: all parts of the building are the same height, the hall and infant's classroom double height, the schoolmaster's house of one and a half storeys, with single-storey flat-roofed and lean-to service and store rooms to the north-east. In the main south-east elevation the 1901 addition contains an entrance and a dormer window in the roof. The 1865 school hall has two tripartite windows under flat arches. Between the hall and the gable end of the schoolmaster's house is a porch with a steeply pitched roof which gives access to a passage between hall and house, and there is a similar porch over the front door to the house. Both have plank and batten doors with C17 style decorative hinges, and all three doors to this elevation have four-centred arches. The school hall projects as a wing to the north-west, its gable forming a pair with that of the house, set back, with the connecting section between the two. Both have canted bay windows to the ground floor, with leaded lights and tiled roofs; the ghost of the thatch can be seen around the roof of the bay window to the house. There is an external stack with two chimneys to the north-east elevation of the school hall. The south-west facing gable of the 1901 hall has bargeboards and a tall central window flanked by two smaller windows. Apart from the bay windows, all main windows to the school hall and infants' classroom have lower central panes with hopper openings, while all but one of the smaller house windows are simple timber replacements for the original diamond lead-paned windows.

INTERIOR: an entrance to the left of the passage that links the school and the master's house opens into the main school hall. This has a through purlin arch-braced collar truss roof aligned along the main body of the hall, but with separate roof trusses aligned at a right-angle across the south-east end of the hall. The arches rise from plain corbels located just under half way up the walls. The two fireplaces have been removed, as have the internal doors, and the wall below one window has been broken through.

The visible section of the roof in the infant's classroom has small corbels supporting braces to collars. Above this is loft space, the main access to which appears to be from an opening high in wall of the main hall. The classroom contains no other detail.

The passage between the main school hall and the master's house has a red and black quarry tiled floor which extends to the right of the passage into what appears to have been the kitchen of the early C19 master's house, containing an open hearth large enough to accommodate a small range, with mantel shelf above, to the right of which are full height fitted cupboards. The quarry tiled floor continues into the entrance hall to the house, with staircase and door to the living room. The living room has shelves above a cupboard next to the fireplace, which has been removed. A door from the living room opens into the first of three small rooms opening into each other in a row; these are within the single-storey lean-to and flat-roofed structures to the north-east. One panelled door survives.

From the hall an open string staircase with stick balusters rises to the first-floor landing, off which are two bedrooms, the smaller with no detail, the larger with an almost full height cupboard beside the chimney breast. This contains an early to mid-C19 cast-iron basket fireplace with chamfered wooden surround.

<1> English Heritage, Designation Advice Report, Designation Adviser, 09 March 2012 (Report). SNN113190.

Record last edited

Feb 17 2025 6:12PM