York Historic Environment Record

School and former Post Office, now a house. Early C18 with late C18 addition. Red brick with pantile roofs and 2 gable stacks. Raised and tumbled brick gables to earlier range. 2 storey, 3 bay. Single bay early C18 range to west, with a single plank door, now covered by a C20 wooden gabled porch. To the left a 3-light sliding sash with a similar window above. To the east a lower, 2 bay late C18 range with dentilated eaves. Two 3-light sliding sashes with shallow segment heads on the ground floor, with above 2 similar windows above aid a small casement. Interior contains chamfered beams.
Listing NGR: SE6764944733

Derived from English Heritage LB download dated: 22/08/2005

The Wheldrake Historical Society research:

A record from July 1824 noted that:
a schoolhouse has stood within the limits of the Churchyard time out of mind and by the Church Account Book it has been repaired in the year 1743 by the Parishioners…. As far as I can learn, the old thatched mudwalled school has been taken down in the year 1753 and rebuilt by subscription in the year 1757, and at this present time (Jule 1824) in one of the school windows is wrote “Joshua Jackson glazed this school 1757”.

The west end was added when a new school was built in 1826 and in 1851 it provided accommodation for the schoolmaster, his wife, infant-mistress daughter, five children and five teenage boarders. The Ordnance Survey map of 1857 noted the cottage as the post office and the schoolmaster was also the postmaster until he gave up his posts in 1873. Church Cottage was superseded as a school, school house and post office but remained in public use as the church used the building more and in the 1970s it was renovated by the youth group to provide them with their own facilities. Church Cottage now provides the kitchen, WC and meeting room facilities that are needed by modern church use, as well as being available for the wider community.

Ferrey and Mennim, 2019, Church Cottage Wheldrake HER ST (Unpublished document). SYO2196.

LS Archaeology, 2020, Church Cottage, Wheldrake (Unpublished document). SYO2603.