The Old School

Cadw's description

Location

Opposite the Village Green and church and churchyard of St John the Baptist, at the foot of Clevis Hill which rises steeply to the rear.

History

Built 1848 with accommodation for 96 children following Report of Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales 1847. Formerly comprised schoolmaster/mistress's house and attached school room, with yard and garden surrounding. Census of 1851 names Henry and Elizabeth Monro. Logbooks from 1874 survive. Replaced by Newton Council School in New Road 1906. Now used as parish hall and ground floor rooms have been combined. Fabric shows some alterations including to S side of schoolroom; porch at SW corner added 1890.

Exterior

Of rubble with plain or tooled ashlar dressings, large decorative painted bargeboards with deep finials to each gable; Welsh slate roof with blue ridge tiles, overhanging eaves and ashlar end stack right and external stack left. Plan of rectangular schoolroom with added porch wing and attached two bay school house with central porch and rear outshut. S schoolroom elevation has 3 windows with chamfered voussoirs and surrounds and painted stone sills, renewed glazing, plinth; central bay masonry shows some alteration; entrance porch with separate gable at left end. W schoolhouse elevation is 2 storey, with large gabled porch centre right; large quoins decoratively tooled; chamfered Tudor-arched doorways to porch and house, the latter with vertical panelled door; limewashed porch walls. On first floor similar gable to full dormer which has 2/2 pane casement window; ground floor window left with renewed glazing has chamfered voussoirs and surround, sill; single light window right of porch. To right double gable to school cross wing which has similar schoolroom window; matching smaller gable to added porch right with blocked doorway to street, no plinth and a battered corner. Single storey outshut to rear of house and added store to side. Boundary walls are of rubble with rough stone coping and roadside entrances with tooled ashlar piers and pyramidal finials.

Interior

Ground floor rooms joined together for community use.

Reason for designation

Included as a largely unaltered school and school house from the mid C19 in a prominent position in the village; group value with the church of St John the Baptist, the Churchyard Cross, St John's Well and Crown House.