Ysgol Trelawnyd

Cadw's description

Location

In a forecourt and set back and above the N side of London Road, opposite the junction of a minor road to Trelawnyd church.

History

A school at Trelawnyd was endowed by John Wynne (1650-1714) who had established an Independent chapel at Trelawnyd. In his will of 1713, he gave a house to the minister for use as a 'public grammar school with Latin and Greek authors'. The school closed in 1718, but over a century later Wynne's endowment was put toward the cost of a Church elementary school, which was built in 1860 by R Lloyd Williams & Martin Underwood. Williams was an architect of Denbigh and surveyor to St Asaph diocese. The original design incorporated school room and a school house, but the latter has since been adapted to provide further classroom and office accommodation. Additional wings were added at the rear in the C20.

Exterior

Gothic style asymmetrical school of rubble stone with Bath stone dressings, and steep slate roof, incorporating a band of slates laid in a lozenge pattern, behind coped gables on moulded kneelers. The kneelers are enriched by blind trefoils in gablets. The original single-storey school room and 2-storey school house are separated by a central coped gable, which has a tall stack at the rear. The school house has a slightly lower ridge line. The arched windows have hood moulds with round stops. The windows are mostly replaced in original openings. The front faces S and the original schoolroom, on the L side, has low angle buttresses, while the school house on the R side has clasping buttresses.

Doorways to the schoolroom and house are offset R of centre either side of the central gable, and within a canopy under an outshut roof. The canopy has a single central fluted cast iron column. Both doorways have nook shafts, 2-centred arches with filleted roll mouldings, and boarded doors with flowing strap hinges. The doorways are flanked by small square-headed windows. Above the R-hand doorway is a window of 3 cusped lights lighting the school house stairs, beneath a pyramidal roof with apex weathervane. The accent on the school room is provided by a projecting, lower gabled bay with a pair of 2-light geometrical windows with plate tracery, separated by a buttress carrying the gable bellcote. The bellcote has a moulded string course above corbels at the base, and is ashlar with a coped gable. A segmental pointed arch has a hood mould continuous with a string course. The bell has been removed. On the L side of the gabled bay is a stone stack rising from the eaves of the main range, while further L are 2 cusped lights above an added flat-roofed boiler room. The schoolroom is principally lit by a large 3-light geometrical window with plate tracery in the gable end.

On the R side of the entrance the house has a projecting 2-storey gabled bay. In the lower storey is a 3-light mullioned window with shouldered lintel and hood mould, above which is a window of 2 cusped lights, under a pointed hood mould, the tympanum of which has a blank shield. In the R side wall of the projecting bay is a canted 2-light bay window with cusped lights under a stone slab roof in the lower storey. Brought forward to its R is the gable end of the main range, which has a stone stack on its L side. The upper storey has a 2-light mullioned window, the lower storey a similar 2-light window offset to the L, a boarded door under a segmental head to the R, and a small window in a shallow integral rear lean-to.

Against the rear of the main range is a single-storey parallel gabled wing, and a higher wing at the W end at right angles behind the schoolroom. In its upper storey, the rear of the school house has a tall stone eaves stack L of centre, to the R of which are a single and a 2-light window beneath a gablet. The rear wing behind the schoolroom is continuous with the gable end of the main range. It has a link to an added late C20 block, which is set well back from the original building, and behind the link the wing has a 2-light mullioned window. The gable end of the wing has a large brick segmental-headed window facing the rear.

Interior

The original school room retains a 4-bay king-post roof, of which the posts are octagonal below the level of raking struts. The original school house retains an open-well stair with plain balusters and square newels with gablets to pyramidal caps.

Reason for designation

Listed for its architectural interest as a notable essay in Gothic revival principles, characterised by expressive asymmetry and retaining good original detail.