The old school, Chilton Foliat

I love the history of this building. It is now no longer in use- a new primary school has been built and this has been converted into a house. It is attached to the old forge.

Interesting information about the school:

The National School opened in 1835;

A report of a recent HMI inspection is copied into the log book at June 12, 1888. Of the Mixed School, the Inspector notes: �The children work heartily and are well influenced. But the general quality of the work has rather fallen off since last year�. The curriculum includes the following subjects: Needlework, Singing by ear, Handwriting, English, Reading, Spelling, Arithmetic, Composition.

An Evening School is also in existence at this date and it is noted that, �There is much painstaking work done. Kindly interest and encouragement have gained a good influence over the scholars, who behave well, and seem to value their instruction�� The curriculum here included Reading, Writing, Spelling and Arithmetic.

Attendances were greatly affected by the weather since pupils would walk to school from all points of the parish, including Soley and Leverton; furthermore, until the early 20th century when arrangements were made for school dinners to be taken by pupils who wished to do so, pupils might walk home for lunch and back to school for the afternoon session. Severe weather conditions consequently had an important effect on attendance, and the head teacher would be sure to explain the cause when low pupil numbers resulted from severe weather conditions � cold, rain, flooding and snow.

Pupils� absence from school would also, in a rural area, result from the need for children to help with agricultural work, particularly during the harvest. Whilst the dates of the summer, �Harvest�, holiday would be flexible, according to the readiness of the crops, when children continued to be absent after these officially sanctioned dates the absence and cause would be noted in the log books.

In July 1888 the school closed for a week as a result of an outbreak of mumps. In September of the following year the log book reports an outbreak of scarlet fever in Leverton, believed to have been brought by visitors from London. As a result, the County Sanitary Officer instructed that Leverton children should not attend the school, and their absence would finally last eight weeks.


In December 1890 diseases struck the school again, with colds, measles and, particularly dangerously, diphtheria. At this date there were three deaths from diphtheria and one from measles; one boy and one girl, brother and sister, died within half an hour of each other from bronchitis following measles.