Lichfield Old Grammar School - St John Street, Lichfield - sign

This is the former Lichfield Old Grammar School on St John Street in Lichfield.

 

Now offices of Lichfield District Council.

 

Sign that says The Old Grammer School.

 

Grade II listed.

 

Lichfield District Council Offices (part) and Attached Wall and Gates 45, Lichfield

 

LICHFIELD

 

SK1109SE ST JOHN STREET

1094-1/8/165 (North East side)

05/02/52 No.45

Lichfield District Council Offices

(part) and attached wall and gates

(Formerly Listed as:

ST JOHN STREET

(North East side)

No.45

Rural Council House and Council

Chamber)

 

GV II

 

Schoolmaster's and boarders' house for Lichfield Grammar

School, with former school room to rear. 1682 with C18 rear

wing, school room and front wall of c1849, by Thomas Johnson

and Son of Lichfield, with C18 wall to right return.

Brick; hipped tile roof with 2 brick stacks. Double-depth

plan. Early Georgian style.

2 storeys with attic; symmetrical 5-window range. Plaster

plinth, 2 brick platt bands and top modillioned timber

cornice.

Entrance has big moulded doorcase with pulvinated frieze and

cornice, battened door. Windows have rubbed brick flat arches

over plate glass sashes to ground floor, small-paned cross

casements in moulded frames to 1st floor; 2 hipped dormers

have 2-light casements with iron opening casements.

Right return similar: 2 platt bands and modillioned cornice;

entrance with rubbed brick flat arch and overlight to

half-glazed door and flanking blocked windows, window to right

end of 4 lights with 4-centred heads; stucco wing to right has

two 4-light windows as to left, one altered for entrance;

cross-casements to 1st floor.

School room of brick with ashlar dressings; tile roof with

coped gables. Single-storey, 3-window, range with cross wing

right end. Sill course and top cornice, shaped gable with

finial to wing.

Entrance in wing has 4-centred head with foliate spandrels,

battened door; 3-light double-chamfered-mullioned windows with

elliptical heads and label moulds, 2 have 2 upper lights with

shaped gablets; wing has 1st floor oriel with 1:3:1-light

transomed window. 3 rainwater heads.

Return and rear similar with later alterations and additions.

INTERIOR: house has central open-well spiral staircase with

turned balusters; 1st floor has exposed timber-framed

partition walls and ovolo-moulded beams, 2-panel doors; attic

has exposed trusses with curved principals; school room has

hammer beam roof and 2 fireplaces with 4-centred heads, one

fireplace has timber surround with paired Tuscan columns;

later council chamber furniture including canopied seat;

wrought-iron scrolled chandeliers.

Front wall, which extends approx. 31m to right and returns for

approx. 47m to rear, has stone coping and cross-slits with

gablets, gateway with elliptical head and coping has enriched

wrought-iron gate; right end paired wrought-iron gates and

piers are later; return wall of brick in 2 phases, following

the medieval town ditch and the parish boundary.

The Grammar School was founded as part of the Hospital of St

John (qv) in 1495, moving to this site in 1577. Many famous

men were pupils here, including Samuel Johnson, David Garrick

and Joseph Addison. The school room was built on the site of

one of 1577, and the buildings became the offices and council

chamber of Lichfield Rural District Council in 1920.

(Clayton H: Cathedral City: Lichfield: 1977-: P.71-2;

Lichfield District Council: District Council House -

Lichfield, A Short History: Lichfield).

 

 

Listing NGR: SK1175409250

Done