Building the school

PLANS BELOW

 

From an Account in the local villages’ magazine; ‘The Old Mail’

Yardley Gobion Victorian Church School

The sale of the CHURCH HALL (Former School) took place on 1st October 1987. It was auctioned on behalf of Yardley Gobion Parochial Church Council by Berry Bros. Commercial in the Coffee Pot, and went for £82,000 to Eaglecourt Development. This marks the end of an era.

In 1874 the school was built, and opened. The architect’s drawing for the first part is “signed on behalf of the committee of the Yardley Gobion Church School” by Henry J Weston (Great-grandfather of Cllr Roger Weston), Esau George Builder, and witnessed by Swinfen Harris. He was the architect responsible for the school, as well as the one at Grafton Regis and lived in Stony Stratford. This drawing shows only that part which was known as the ‘small hall’. The figure of £250-0-0 is on the drawing by the builder’s name which is presumably the agreed price (incidentally £250 invested at 5% compound interest is £62,000 after 113 years.

The large hall and Kitchen were later additions. In due course the school came under the control of the Education Authority, and when the number of new houses being built compelled a new school, the Church bought back the redundant building from the County Council. Since 1969 it has served the village as an additional hall, for we are such a sociable village, that one hall is insufficient for our needs. The Mothers and toddlers met there, as did playgroup II, Yoga classes, keep fit, the Brownies and Guides and the weight trainers. Happily most of these groups have squeezed into the Village Hall, or the School Hall, with the loss of only a few meetings, except for the weight trainers who have had to disband after seventeen years. Village groups meeting in people’s houses for lack of anywhere better include the Housewives Group, Moorend Singers, and Drama Group. We can look forward to a new lease of life for the building when it has been converted to three dwellings.

 

The following plans are shown by the kind permission of the Northampton Record Office.