Former Board school, Street

In 1858 the British school was rebuilt in High Street on land provided by the Clark family to the designs of S. Pollard of Taunton. It was reputedly financed from supplying the army in the Crimea from which, as pacifists, they could not profit. The school with room for 350 children opened in 1859 with readings by William Macready. In 1874 a school board was formed and the British school became Street board school. It was extended in 1876, 1886, and 1893 to accommodate 1,100 children. In 1903 it had 18 classrooms and 826 children. The school was separated into junior and infant schools under one roof and after the removal of the infants numbers at the junior school fell to 377 in 1935 and 282 in 1945 but in 1955 there were 694 pupils aged 7 to 15. Numbers fell to 426 in 1965 following the removal of senior pupils and in 1974 the juniors moved into the former grammar school at Elmhurst Lane to become Elmhurst county junior school. The former British school became a furniture shop.

The two-storeyed schoolroom block of austere Tudor design, built in 1859 to face High Street, has survived, together with the School Board extensions which were built on the site of the schoolmaster’s house in Orchard Street and the yard in the angle of the buildings. The extensions of 1893 and 1901 were said to have been designed by William Reynolds.