History
The school was founded on 29 September 1632 with funding from the estate of Lady Margaret Hawkins (widow of Sir John Hawkins) who had died in 1619. [2] In her will, dated 23 April 1619, she left £800 'for the purchasing of lands or tenements of a yearly value of forty pounds for and towards the perpetual maintenance of a learned and choice preaching divine, the Master, to keep a free school in Kington, in the County of Herefordshire, and of a learned and discreet Usher under him, for the instructing and teaching of youths and children in literature and good education.' [3]
Captain Anthony Lewis, servant to Lady Hawkins and acting executor of the will, purchased School Farm, Upper Hergest, in 1622 to produce the necessary forty pounds a year for running the school. He paid £26 13s 4d for a piece of ground in Kington on which the school would be built. Lewis contracted John Abel of Sarnesfield to build it. John Abel, who was Carpenter to King Charles I, was to provide the materials and was paid £240 for his work.
The school is now housed in modern buildings erected in 1962 and 1973, with other buildings erected more recently, almost all of which have been refurbished between 1990 and 1995 to meet the challenges and demands of recent curriculum developments. The original 1600s building is now in use as a private residence. [4]
The school has a tradition on visiting the nearby parish church, St. Mary's, to give thanks for its foundation and all those who have served in it over three and a half centuries. [2]
Leominster is a market town in Herefordshire, England; it is located at the confluence of the River Lugg and its tributary the River Kenwater. The town is 12 miles north of Hereford and 7 miles south of Ludlow in Shropshire. With a population of 11,700, Leominster is the largest of the five towns in the county; the others being Ross-on-Wye, Ledbury, Bromyard and Kington.
Kington is a market town and civil parish in Herefordshire, England. The parish had a population of 3,240.
Ledbury is a market town and civil parish in the county of Herefordshire, England, lying east of Hereford, and west of the Malvern Hills.
Ross-on-Wye is a market town and civil parish in Herefordshire, England, near the border with Wales. It had a population estimated at 10,978 in 2021. It lies in south-east of the county, on the River Wye and on the northern edge of the Forest of Dean.
Bromyard is a town in the parish of Bromyard and Winslow, in Herefordshire, England, in the valley of the River Frome. It is near the county border with Worcestershire on the A44 between Leominster and Worcester. Bromyard has a number of traditional half-timbered buildings, including some of the pubs; the parish church is Norman. For centuries, there was a livestock market in the town.
Presteigne is a town and community on the south bank of the River Lugg in Powys, Wales. The town is located on the England–Wales border, which surrounds it to the north, east and south. Nearby towns are Kington, Herefordshire to the south and Knighton to the north, and surrounding villages include Norton and Stapleton. The community has a population of 2,710; the built-up area had a population of 2,056.
John Abel was an English carpenter and mason, granted the title of 'King's Carpenter', who was responsible for several notable structures in the ornamented Half-timbered construction typical of the West Midlands.
Weobley is an ancient settlement and civil parish in Herefordshire, England. Formerly a market town, the market is long defunct and the settlement is today promoted as one of the county's black and white villages owing to its abundance of old timber-framed buildings. Although it has the historical status of a town and is referred to as such in the sources, it nowadays refers to itself as a village.
Eardisley is a village and civil parish in Herefordshire about 5 miles (8.0 km) south of the centre of Kington. Eardisley is in the Wye valley in the northwest of the county, close to the border with Wales.
Upton Bishop is a small village in Herefordshire, England. The population of the village at the 2011 census was 602.
Lewis Nockalls Cottingham was a British architect who pioneered the study of Medieval Gothic architecture. He was a restorer and conservator of existing buildings. He set up a Museum of Medieval Art in Waterloo Road, London with a collection of artefacts from demolished buildings and plaster casts of the medieval sculpture.
The Herefordshire Deanery is a Roman Catholic deanery in the Archdiocese of Cardiff that covers several churches in Hereford and the surrounding area.
Hereford Cathedral Library is a working theological lending and reference library located in Hereford Cathedral, Hereford, England; it also holds books and manuscripts of major importance to the history of the county of Herefordshire. Hereford Cathedral Library is also well known for its chained books as it is the only library of this type to survive with all of the chains, rods and locks still intact.
Grange Court is a former market hall in Leominster, Herefordshire, England. It was built in 1633 by John Abel, and moved to its present location in 1859. It was then used as a private house until the 1930s, and is now once again a civic building.
The Church of St Mary, or St. Mary the Virgin Church, Kington, Herefordshire, England is a Grade I listed parish church.
Rev. James Davies, born James Banks, was an English classical scholar, writer, headmaster, landowner, and prebendary of the Church of England.
Staunton on Arrow is a village and civil parish in the county of Herefordshire, England. The village is 17 miles (27 km) north-west of Hereford and 8 miles (13 km) to the west of Leominster. Within the parish is the site of the Iron Age hill fort of Wapley Hill.
Kington Rural is a civil parish in west Herefordshire, England, and is approximately 17 miles (30 km) north-west from the city and county town of Hereford. The parish borders Wales at the west, and contains the hamlets and small settlements of Upper Hergest, Lower Hergest, Chickward, Bredward, and Kingswood at the south, and Bradnor Green and Rushok at the north. The nearest town is the market town of Kington which, with its parish, is to a large extent enclosed by Kington Rural. Significant landmarks of the parish are the Castle Twts motte and bailey earthwork, Hergest Court 15th-century manor house, and Hergest Ridge on the England–Wales border.
Willersley and Winforton is a civil parish in west Herefordshire, England, and is approximately 14 miles (20 km) west-northwest from the city and county town of Hereford. The parish contains the village of Winforton and the farming hamlet of Willersley. The nearest towns are the market towns of Hay-on-Wye 5 miles (8 km) to the south-west, and Kington 6 miles (10 km) to the north. The physicist Sir Thomas Ralph Merton KBE, DSc, FRS, lived at Winforton during the Second World War.
