Description

LANCASTER

SD4761NE MIDDLE STREET
1685-1/7/183 (South side)
11/06/90 Windermere House
(Formerly Listed as:
MIDDLE STREET
(South side)
Redman House)

GV II

Girls' charity school, now offices. 1849. Probably by Sharpe
and Paley. Elizabethen Vernacular style. Coursed and snecked
sandstone with ashlar dressings. Slate roofs with coped gables
and kneelers. Rectangular plan with the entrance in the second
bay. Chimney stacks, each with 2 flues set diagonally, between
the second and third bays and on the right-hand gable. Low
service wing to the rear.
2 storeys and 5 slightly irregular bays, each with a gabled
dormer. The doorway has a moulded 2-centred arch, and a
boarded door, recessed up 2 steps. Above the doorway is an
arched niche which contains the figures of 2 girls holding an
inscription. To the left on the ground floor is a 4-light
mullioned window; like all the others, it has arched lights.
The first 2 gables, each with a 2-light mullioned and
transomed window, are offset slightly to the left. To the
right of the doorway on the ground floor are four 3-light
mullioned and transomed windows, while on the first floor
there are only three 3-light stepped mullioned and transomed
windows, each under a gable. The left-hand gable wall has a
3-light mullioned and transomed window on the ground floor,
with a similar stepped one above. To the left of the building
is a raised yard.
INTERIOR: to the right of the entrance there is a large room
on each floor; the upper one has an arch-braced roof.
HISTORY: built to replace a smaller school on the same site,
which was opened in 1772 and whose datestone is visible inside
on the ground floor. The inscription above the main doorway,
which is almost illegible, was said to read: 'This school was
rebuilt and enlarged by the bounty of Richard Newsham, Esq.,
of Preston, and Agnes Bowes, his wife, and other friends of
education, an extension being granted by William Ford, Esq.,
and his sisters, A.D. 1849.'
(Cross Fleury (pseud.): Time-Honoured Lancaster: Lancaster:
1891-: 530).

Listing NGR: SD4755261541

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Windermere House at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q8024120

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

• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)