History

Built in 1724 at the cost of £500 from the bequest under the will of Charles Williams, died 1720. He had fled the country following a duel in which he killed his cousin Edmund Morgan of Penhos. He made a fortune in exile in Turkey and later returned to Britain with a pardon from Queen Anne. He left £4000 'for the upkeep of a school or schools within the town of Caerleon' and £3000 'for mending and adorning the inside of the church there' (q.v. Church of St Cadoc) The £3500 available for endowing the school was invested in land and has continued to support the school to this day. The school was intended 'for 30 boys and 20 girls of the poorer sort', but this was quickly reduced by the trustees to 20 boys and 10 girls. The school is remarkable for having only nine headmasters from its foundation in 1724 to 1948, when it became part of the state system under the 1944 Education Act. It had already been greatly expanded in size in 1907-9, when the original building was also altered. In 1964 it became a primary school following the opening of Caerleon Comprehensive. The Trust continues to provide the buildings and facilities while the state pays for the teaching; it also uses the invested funds to provide for the children at the other Caerleon schools and for youth projects in the town.
Apart from the extension attached to the original school in 1907-9 and some windows, the building has been little changed. The cast iron windows will not be original but are probably early C19 and the form of their predecessors is not known. The front gate and railings were added in the mid C19 and are listed separately. The kitchen wing to the left of the Master's house was demolished in 1994. The original building has been re-roofed at some time in the C20 and no longer has any chimneys apart from the rear wing of the Master's house.

Exterior

The original building is rendered throughout, probably over local rubble stone and has Welsh slate roofs with red tile ridges. The 1907-9 extension is in rockfaced squared random rubble with red brick and Bath stone dressings, roofs as before.
The plan is based on the late C17 country house with hall and two crosswings, like Tredegar House. This is particularly well suited to a school, see Interior below. There is a single storey centrepiece of three bays with two storey, two bay wings and an attic storey across the whole. The central entrance has a projecting porch, with key head doorway, panelled door, rusticated quoins and small arched windows in the returns, cornice and flat roof. The porch is probably an addition, contemporary with the railings or the cast iron windows or it could be part of the 1907-9 additions. Above this is a three light mullion and transom timber window with diamond lattice glazing under a flat voussoired head with dropped keystone. This window would seem to date from the 1907-9 works, the opening could be earlier but seems unlikely to be original. The porch is flanked by mullion and transom windows with semi-circular heads, all cast iron with diamond lattice casements. Above the central window is a plaque with the inscription 'THIS CHARITY SCHOOL WAS ERECTED / AND ENDOWED BY THE BOUNTY OF / CHARLES WILLIAM, ESQUIRE, / A NATIVE OF THIS TOWN / ANNO DOMINI 1724". Timber eaves cornice, roof with three hipped dormers with two light lattice casements and metal ventilator in the roof ridge. These date from the early C20 re-roofing but are in early C18 character. The wings project to either side with the door to the Master's house in the return of the left hand one. Two arched windows in each floor and one domer in the forward facing hips, all as before. Plat band between the floors. The front is encircled by railings which are separately listed (qv).
The left hand return of the Master's house has two windows and a dormer in the ground floor and three above with another in the separately roofed rear wing. These are all 2 over 2 sashes in semi-circular heads and were replaced following the demolition of the kitchen wing in 1994. The return to the right hand wing has a projecting extension with three cross-framed windows in the ground floor, an alteration of 1907-9. Above this is a single window which has 3 lights over two, also a 1907-9 alteration. The rear elevation of the original building is mostly masked by the considerable extension of 1907-9 but retains one circular window and one arched window, one 1907 window and four dormers as before. The extension is single storeyed with two classroooms at right angles to each other, each with its own gabled roof. Elaborate tripartite window in the gable end to the street and semicircular but canted, to the other gable. Plain bargeboards. Two tall brick stacks, circular metal ventilator to the ridge.
Erected outside the right hand wing on the front is a milepost from the Caerleon Tramroad. This was discovered in the Afon Llwyd at Llantarnam Abbey and was presented to Caerleon Town Council and erected here in 1977. It is a shaped cast iron post about 0.75m in height which is inscribed 'FROM THE OLD BRIDGE PIER IN CAERLEON 31/4 MILES 1822 C.T.R'.

Interior

The planning of the C18 school remains virtually unchanged. The centre section of the building is the main schoolroom, presumably the boy's schoolroom and dining room and the right hand wing the smaller (girl's) school, both now the school library. They have inserted ceilings. The left hand wing contains the Master's house, lived in by the headmaster until the late C 20. This has had some alteration to its rooms, and the kitchen wing was demolished in 1994. A stick baluster stair with mahogany handrail leads to the upper floor, where there are two early C18 two-panel doors and a cupboard with panel door and circular head. The stair continues to the attic dormitories which are over the whole building and are lit from both sides. These have principal rafter roofs with framing for the hips visible but it can also be seen that the purlins have been replaced and the roof recovered. Original floorboards to some of it. The rear addition of 1907-9 has two largely unaltered classrooms with corridor, cloakrooms etc.

Reasons for Listing

Included and highly graded as a rare early C18 school retaining significant historic character and having strong group value with the surrounding historic buildings in the centre of Caerleon.

External Links

• Cadwr Listing
• Caerleon Endowed School at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q5016905

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

• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)