Hawkshead Grammar School Photograph, Cumbria
N 54° 22.421 W 002° 59.902
30U E 500106 N 6025099
Hawkshead Grammar School Photograph originally a postcard from a photograph taken in 1894. Nowadays a museum to school life 400 years ago. Nominal admission charge. Open to the public. Well worth a visit for the guided tour.
Waymark Code: WMVGV
Location: North West England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 10/17/2006
Views: 58
Famous pupils were William Wordsworth and his brother between 1779 - 1787.
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) And before the boys left school, their father had died.
Initially only a single story building, in Victorian times an upper floor was added. The windows were originally oak sash frames, now replaced with sandstone surrounds, including main doorway. Also the outside walls have been rendered and painted, sealing in the water. So what we see in both pictures is not how school was originally built. In the school archive is a woodcut drawing, and paperwork on school's construction.
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 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. Upstairs is the headmaster's study and a classroom containing an exhibition of the history of the school, its founder and William Wordsworth.
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.
- Visit LinkOpen weekdays 10 - 5 pm (lunch 12.30 - 1.30)
Sundays 1 - 5 pm
Shut between November and Easter.
Exterior viewing all year round.
sources: Hawkshead Revisited by John Dixon
A Literary Guide to the Lake District by Grevel Lindop
See nearby waymarks
Obviously this is South side of building as there is a sundial in view. Looking North.