Hawkshead Grammar School - Hawkshead Cumbria
N 54° 22.421 W 002° 59.902
30U E 500106 N 6025099
Hawkshead Grammar School was attended by William Wordsworth and his brothers between 1779 - 1787. School has not changed much since Wordsworth's time. Open to the public. Admission charge. Guided tour well worth a visit. No charge for exterior view.
Waymark Code: WMVD0
Location: North West England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 10/16/2006
Views: 65
Archbishop of York Edwin Sandys started building Hawkshead Grammar School in 1585. His son, Samuel, completed it, after his sudden death in 1588. In its heyday the school was the equivalent of Eton or Rugby. Room for about a hundred boys. Pupils lodged in nearby Masters house, and other property the grammar school owned. Once all school accommodation was filled, pupils had to find their own lodgings. As Wordsworth's mother had died, they lodged with Ann Tyson. (nearby Waymark). Before the brothers left the school, their father had died, and their uncles and grandfather supported them.
Downstairs is laid out as a classroom with the oak desks used in Wordsworth day. The initials WW are carved on one desk, with 'I Wordsworth', his brother John, carved on window sill upstairs.
The school trust owned much land and property both in the village and around the north of England. It was the of the duty the governors to collect annual rents, on horseback in midwinter. Gradually distant property was sold off and property nearer bought.
The school closed in 1909, even after a nearby village school had opened in 1863, on land within the grammar school grounds, gifted to the village by trustees. The school briefly re-opened during WW2 to cope with influx of refugee children. see nearby waymarks.
Upstairs is the headmaster's study and a classroom containing an exhibition of the history of the school, its founder and William Wordsworth. The adjacent building, built 1863, is the old gymnasium. Now the caretaker and guide's residence.
This is one of four schools within 200 metres of each other. From the modern Esthwaite County Primary built 1971, providing parking weekends and school holidays, to the old grammar school. Look at nearby waymarks for other schools. All are built on land once belonging to Sandys descendants, still a major land owner, now living at Graythwaite Hall.
Interior visits weekdays 10 - 5 pm (lunch 12.30 - 1.30) Sundays 1 - 5 pm
Interior shut between November and Easter.
Exterior always on view as public footpath past front door.
sources: Hawkshead Revisited by John Dixon
A Literary Guide to the Lake District by Grevel Lindop
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visit link)