Survey Data
Reg No
12325018
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Original Use
School
Date
1800 - 1837
Coordinates
245422, 122402
Date Recorded
05/07/2004
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached three-bay (three-bay deep) single-storey gable-fronted school house, extant 1837, on a rectangular plan centred on single-bay single-storey gabled projecting porch. Now disused. Pitched (gable-fronted) slate roof; pitched (gabled) slate roof (porch), clay ridge tiles, rendered chimney stacks having concrete capping supporting terracotta pots, and cast-iron rainwater goods on rendered eaves retaining cast-iron downpipes. Roughcast walls on rendered plinth with rendered strips to corners supporting rendered band to eaves. Square-headed central window opening in bipartite arrangement (porch) with shallow sill, timber mullion, and concealed dressings with hood moulding framing one-over-one timber sash windows. Square-headed window openings in bipartite arrangement with shallow sills, timber mullions, and concealed dressings with hood mouldings framing four-over-six timber sash windows. Square-headed window openings in bipartite arrangement (side elevations) with shallow sills, timber mullions, and concealed dressings framing six-over-two timber sash windows. Set back from line of street with piers to perimeter having rounded or segmental capping supporting flat iron gate.
Appraisal
A school house representing an important component of the early nineteenth-century built heritage of Piltown with the architectural value of the composition, one described (1837) as 'the male and female Protestant schools chiefly supported by the Earl of Besborough [sic] and the rector' (Lewis 1837 II, 461), confirmed by such attributes as the compact rectilinear plan form centred on a later porch; the elegant bipartite glazing patterns; and the gabled roofline. A prolonged period of neglect notwithstanding, the form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, thus upholding the character or integrity of a school house forming part of a self-contained group alongside an adjacent national school (see 12325017) with the resulting ensemble making a pleasing visual statement in an increasingly suburbanised street scene.