Description

WARMINSTER CHURCH STREET
1.
5411
(East Side)
No 28 (Warminster School)
(Formerly listed as
No 28 (Lord Weymouth
School)
ST 8645 SE 5/67 28.4.52.
ST 8745 SW 6/67

II* GV

2.
Built 1705 to 1708 and endowed 1707 by 1st Lord Weymouth (see inscribed tablet
over entrance). 2 1/2 storeys, local rubble, irregular with occasional ashlar
blocks on ground floor and wider yellow courses on 1st floor. Plinth, 1st
floor string and moulded eaves cornice. Rusticated quoins. Old tile roof
with coped verges and gable end chimneys. Symmetrical with 7 bays and slight
central break. 7 hipped 2 light glazing bar dormers, cross stone mullion
and transom casement windows, slightly taller on ground floor; 3 central 1st
floor windows with original lead lights. Central doorpiece from a design
by Christopher Wren circa 1670s, or possibly earlier still, from Longleat
whence it was removed and cut down to its present form:- Bath stone engaged
Corinthian columns with entablature and bracketted cornice flanking half pilasters
to jambs with architrave overarch, central carved keystone and fruit and drapery
swags in spandrels. School set back from road with hipped lean-to to left
with 2 ground floor windows. On the right is a 3 storey range in painted
brick and slate roof, probably early C19, with 2 windows to upper floors.
The interior of the school has a fine panelled (staff) room with an ornamental
fireplace (also said to have been brought from Longleat): swagged Ionic capitals,
flanking shell niches, egg and dart cornice; ceiling of this room painted
by an Italian prisoner of war in 1944. The east front of the school repeats
the general design but has a plainer central door in plain stone surround.
Small square rusticated piers at corners of garden to Church Street in which
are situated a C16-C17 female statue and the fragments of a possibly C15 piscina.
Similar gate piers with ball finials to Ash Walk. 16 ft coursed and squared
mid C19 wall encloses large space to east, with green house on north side.
Dr Arnold and Dean Stanley educated here.

Listing NGR: ST8688645279

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Warminster School at Wikipedia
• Warminster School official website
• Wikidata Q7969638

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House