Former Carnarvon Grammar and Collegiate School, including gate, gate pier, and basement steps

Cadw's description

Location

Set at R angles to the street and facing Love Lane.

History

Founded by Reverend James Hews Bransby (1783-1847) of Bron Hendre, the date said to have been 1836. The school is mentioned in local directories by 1844 and is shown on the town plan of 1852. Bron Hendre provided accommodation for boarders. In 1880 the school had 33 pupils, two thirds of them nonconformists. The school closed in 1916 and was known latterly as Ysgol Jones Bach after John L Jones, a schoolmaster of the late C19.

Exterior

A former school in Tudor-Gothic style, of a single storey with basement. Walls are rubble stone with freestone dressings. Openings are mainly blocked with brick. The steep roof of graded slates is on a plain corbel table and has apex ball finials to gables on moulded kneelers. Each roof slope has 2 raked vents with louvres below the ridge. There is a single tall coursed stone stack rising from the eaves at the rear. The entrance is on the N side facing Love Lane, where there is a dressed stone porch to the R, with stepped gable on moulded kneelers and with apex ball finial. The porch roof is missing. The porch has a Tudor arch to the leading to the blocked doorway. To the L of the porch are 2 narrow loops. The L gable end, facing the road, has a stepped 3-light mullioned and transomed window, with slate infill, and a former wooden notice board to the top of the centre light. The rear has transomed windows R and L, beneath which the basement is of large coursed stone blocks. The R gable end, overlooking the Seiont, is roughcast over brick. It has a stepped mullioned and transomed window similar to the L gable end, except that lozenge and hexagon-pattern iron glazing bars are retained above the transom. The basement has a doorway L and segmental-headed window to the R.

At the entrance to the porch and facing Love Lane is an iron gate hinged on a single monolithic octagonal stone pier with moulded cap. This has simple railings on an L-plan dwarf wall to the R. The basement is reached down quarter-turn stone steps with simple iron railings.

Reason for designation

Listed as a well-detail C19 Gothic school retaining considerable architectural character.