Chirk Furniture and Carpet Centre and Dwelling

Cadw's description

Location

The building is at the N end of Chirk centre, facing across the recreation ground.

History

Former National Girls' School, also taking infants of both sexes, built 1843-4 by A W N Pugin who was employed at the castle at the time, at the expence of the dowager Charlotte Myddleton (Mrs Myddleton-Biddulph] at the cost of £450, and extended to the N in sympathetic style in 1874. It was further altered and extended in 1905 and more recently.

Exterior

Former school in Elizabethan idiom. Coursed and snecked coal-measure sandstones on an ashlar plinth, with a slate roof between raised gables. The original building comprised a schoolroom parallel to the road, the dwelling forming a right-angled wing to the rear. Symmetrical, with two projecting gabled bays to the front with 2-light stone mullioned windows, and a central twin 4-light window stone mullioned with a transom. Twin 4-light window in the S gable, the gable having pronounced kneelers and a roundel with running mouchettes above. Two C20 first floor windows. Tall pitched-roof bellcote at the original N gable end, and the original entrance between a thickening of the wall carrying the bellcote under, now incorporated in the 1905 work. This extension provides a new 3-centred door under a raised gable, and a projecting N wing repeating the design of the S gable and extended to the rear, with mullioned and transomed stone windows. The schoolhouse has a basket-headed door and 2-light mullioned and transomed windows, the upper floor lit by a small raised and gabled dormer, jettied on a moulded corbel table. Three tall octagonal stacks central between the schoolroom and house, and two similar stacks on the E gable end.

Interior

The interior has been altered by the insertion of a floor.

Reason for designation

Included as a carefully designed elementary school, an interesting demonstration of A W N Pugin's ability to achieve a fine architectural solution to even the smallest commission: here, the careful expression of plan, and the aptness of style to function stand out as Puginian principals. The 1905 extension to the N respects the scale and detail of the original work. Within the Conservation Area of Chirk.