Horsehouse School

see below for photographs

 

Horsehouse school probably owes its foundation to the bequests of William Swithinbank in 1714 and John Constantine in 1724. Each provided money for the education and apprenticeship of a small number of poor boys living in Carlton Highdale (identified as from Gammersgill to Dalehead).

 

It is not known whether the school functioned continuously from the early 18th century or whether girls ever attended. However, by 1839, government charity commissioners reported that there was a thriving school in Horsehouse with between twenty and thirty pupils. The children were taught reading, writing and arithmetic by an efficient master, who was paid partly by the Swithinbank and Constantine bequests, and who had been in post for the previous 21 years.

 

It is not certain whether there was a dedicated school building throughout the school’s early years. It is possible that the original small numbers of children may have been taught in the church vestry and that, as demand grew, a cottage or barn may have been used as a schoolroom.

 

By the time of the 1870 Education Act, the trustees of Horsehouse school were advised by the Education Department in Whitehall that new accommodation was needed if all of the fifty children of the High Dale were to attend school and obtain an education. As a result, George Woodcock Wray and Henry Robinson set about raising the necessary funds to build a new schoolroom and teacher’s house - possibly on the site of a previous school. They encountered many difficulties.  Prevarication on Wray’s part and building problems meant that legal deadlines for the opening of the school were missed and the imposition of a locally elected School Board was threatened by the Education officials. The new school was eventually opened in August 1878 just in time to avoid this perceived calamity!

 

This new school seems to have flourished throughout the 19th and early part of the 20th century. However, a steady fall in the number of children in the High Dale brought about its closure in the summer of 1939. Almost immediately, the school had to reopen to accommodate children evacuated from the cities on Teesside at the outbreak of the war. The speedy return of almost all of these evacuees led to the final closure of the school in 1940.

 

The school building of 1878 still stands today and serves the people of the Dale as a community hall .The adjacent teachers’ house is now in private ownership.

 

Generations of children have benefited from their education at Horsehouse school.  A verse by Ralph Rider, inscribed in a plaque on the front of the school building, thanks the benefactors for their kindness and reminds the passer-by that the education provided there was a “treasure laid for ages to endure”.

Isobel Jenkins

 

 

Horsehouse School historic photographs

(slideshow changes every 45 seconds. Please click on a thumbnail to move on, or go back.)

With thanks to Judith and Arthur Staples