Victorian school at Old School House, Fairstead Hall Road, Fairstead (EHER 80242)

The Old School House was built in the mid 19th century to serve the small local community as part of the National Schools programme.

March 2017. Level 2 building survey. The Old School House was built in the mid 19th century to serve the small local community as part of the National Schools programme. The teacher was the local rector and schoolmistress. White’s Directory of Essex 1863 records Miss Amelia Keeble as schoolmistress. The school continued at least into the 1930s, by which time mainstream education could provide better facilities. A building is shown on the 1838 Tithe Award that corresponds in plan to the current one and is described in as two cottages occupied by Ann Shadrack and owned by Colonel Joseph Holden Strutt. However, the visible fabric in the form of the bricks and the machined timber roof, the heavy mullioned doors and windows, all indicate a build date in the second half on the 19th century. Recorded in the Houses of Parliament: In 1818, the education in Fairstead consisted of, "A day school, supported at the expense of the rector, containing 20 children. The poor have ample means of educating children." Education had developed by 1833, with Fairstead having "One Day and Sunday School, supported by the Rector, in which 22 males and 18 females attend daily, and 12 males and 4 females in addition on Sundays." By 1867 attendance and facilities had increased: "There is both a day and night school in Fairstead, not in connexion with Government, held in a large room in a cottage, attended by from 40 to 50 children. The night school is taught by the rector, with the aid of the school-mistress." The school was built to a hierarchy of use with a grander vaulted room to the west and a larger but more modest room to the east. This may have been done to divide boys and girls or older from younger. The building was a cheap timber-framed building equipped with stout fixtures and plain decor. The small outshot to the rear under a catslide roof was added in the 1930s to provide inside toilets. The house is shown in its present plan on the 1953 OS map and it is likely it was converted shortly before. <1>