page_title: Concord School House (Philadelphia)
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Concord School House (Philadelphia) / Architecture
context_page_description: The Concord School House is a historic one-room schoolhouse in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is operated today as a museum. It is part of the Colonial Germantown Historic District which was named a National Historic Landmark District in 1965.
  Built in 1775 by Jacob Knorr, Concord was the first English-language school in Germantown, which was then a separate town about six miles northwest of Philadelphia. It is built on the corner of the Upper Burial Ground at Washington Lane and Germantown Avenue. It opened to students in October 1775, and served as a school room until at least 1889.
context_section_description: The school is 25 by 37 feet (7.6 by 11.3 m), two bays by three bays, and was originally one story with a cellar. In 1818 a second floor was added as a town meeting room which was long used as a library. A square open belfry with a spire tops the roof. The walls are made of rough random rubble which was once stuccoed. Both entrance doors are on the south side of the building. The cellar is accessed from two stairways, one from the outside in front of the school, and the other from the back of the classroom.
  The teacher stood on a raised platform on the west side of the classroom.  The building retains its original bell and belfry, schoolmaster's desk, books, and even a stool and dunce cap.
  The schoolhouse sits on a raised lot about 5 feet (1.5 m) above and about 20 feet (6.1 m) east of Germantown Avenue. Seven stairs ascend from the street leading to the school which is on the same level as the Upper Burial Ground. A short retaining wall on Germantown Avenue, may have been built in 1777, when the much taller wall around the Upper Burial Ground was built.
  Knorr, a master builder, is buried in the burial ground. He also constructed the John Johnson House across the street, Cliveden, and the original Germantown Academy.
caption: Site plan from the Historic American Buildings Survey
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