In the 12th century, the school was no doubt housed near the cathedral at Old Sarum. At the start of the 13th century, the centre of the Diocese of Salisbury was moved from Old Sarum to its present site, and the choristers must have lodged with canons in the new Cathedral Close. After 1319, a house was built in the Close to accommodate the school (known as 'The Choristers' House'), and the school remained here for the next 300 years. The choristers were educated in the Chancellor's Grammar School nearby.
In 1335, most of the students of the College of the Valley Scholars near the cathedral transferred to Salisbury Hall, Oxford, and after that the College was "practically a nursery for a few scholars attending the Cathedral Grammar School" until the Reformation, when it was dissolved.[8]
The school in the Close, Salisbury, c. 1827
In 1714, the school moved to a new School House built for it on the northwest side of The Close. This became known as Wren Hall. The house connected to it, Braybrooke House, was the home of the Chancellor's Grammar School.[9]
In 1847, Bishop Hamilton combined the Cathedral School, or Choristers' School, with the Chancellor's Grammar School, and the school was thereafter known as the Cathedral School.[9]
As the site in the Close could not keep pace with the growing number of pupils, in 1946 the school was relocated to the former Bishop's Palace in the grounds of the cathedral. The building is designated as Grade I listed by English Heritage.[11]
In 1987, the first girls were admitted. The cathedral became the first in England to have female choristers when it opened its choristership programme to girls in 1991.[12]
A library partly funded by the former bookshop chain Ottakar's was opened in October 2002. Two members of the Heneage family, who owned the company, were former pupils.[citation needed]
Leaden Hall School
In 2016, Leaden Hall School, a nearby independent school for girls aged 2 to 13, was merged into Salisbury Cathedral School.[13] At first, the Leaden Hall site was to be for younger pupils at the enlarged school.[14]
The Leaden Hall site, owned by the dean and chapter,[15] is west of the former Bishop's Palace, on West Walk, and is bounded to the west by the River Avon. Its buildings include Leaden Hall (or Leadenhall), which has its origins in one of the first stone houses constructed in the new cathedral close, as a canon's residence.[3] The present house is a 1717 rebuilding to the north, reusing some of the older stonework. Of two storeys under a tiled roof, the west front has four bays (including a later northern bay) and a 19th-century Gothic porch. The building was designated as Grade I listed in 1952.[16]
There was a school on the site from at least 1953.[19] A charity was linked to the school from 1963 to 2018.[20] In 2003 there were 261 pupils, including 40 boarders,[19] and around the time of the merger there were 130.[21]
Location
Salisbury Cathedral School (below left of centre)
The school's 27-acre campus[22] is next to Bishop Wordsworth's School, in the southern part of Salisbury Cathedral Close, which at 80 acres (320,000m2) is the largest Cathedral Close in Britain.[23] The main school building is the former Bishop's Palace, parts of which date from the building of the cathedral in the 13th century. The pre-preparatory part of the school is located in newer buildings adjacent to the palace, but uses some of the main school facilities. The boarding house is also in The Close. Sports facilities include football, rugby and cricket pitches, an athletics track, tennis courts/hockey pitches (Astro Turf) and an outdoor swimming pool.
Academics
Scholarships are offered on entry to the school at Years 3 and 6, with choral scholarships offered at Years 4 and 5. An exchange programme with pupils from Union High School, South Africa, is available to Year 7 students.
The school continues to serve its original function of educating choristers of the cathedral choir. Every year auditions are held for children between ages 7 and 9 and successful applicants receive scholarships to attend the school.[25] It was the first English cathedral to allow girls to become choristers, and is unique in that the girls have equal duties with the boys. Many choristers board in a large boarding house located near the school.[26]
In media
The school featured in a BBC television documentary entitled Angelic Voices: The Choristers of Salisbury Cathedral, which was first broadcast in March 2012.
Edward Lowe (c.1602–1682): Composer, author & organist. Professor of Music at Oxford University (1671–1682).[27]
Sir Stephen Fox (1627–1716): [Noted in John Evelyn's Diary as ‘…a poore boy from the quire of Salisbury’].[28] Founder of The Royal Hospital, Chelsea; Commissioner of the Treasury.[29][30]
Sir George Ridout Bingham, KCB (1777–1833): Army Officer in the Peninsular War. Commanded the garrison of St.Helena guarding the Emperor Napoleon.[27][35]
Walter Kendall Stanton (1891–1978): Organist & composer. Director of BBC Midland Radio Music. Editor of the BBC Hymn Book. First Professor of Music at Bristol University.[27][37]
Stephen Clissold (1913–1982): Author: subjects include mediæval mystics, Latin America & Yugoslavia. In 2nd World War, worked with the British Mission to Yugoslavia. He was the interpreter between Sir Winston Churchill & Marshal Tito at their first meeting.[27][37][38]
Doctor Bernard Rose (1916–1996): Don, organist and master of the choristers, Magdalen College, Oxford.
Professor John Blacking (1928–1990): Anthropologist and ethnomusicologist.[29]
Robert Wilkie (born 1962): Former United Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
Related Research Articles
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Salisbury Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is an Anglican cathedral in Salisbury, England. The cathedral is the mother church of the Diocese of Salisbury and is the seat of the Bishop of Salisbury.
Old Sarum, in Wiltshire, South West England, is the ruined and deserted site of the earliest settlement of Salisbury. Situated on a hill about two miles north of modern Salisbury near the A345 road, the settlement appears in some of the earliest records in the country. It is an English Heritage property and is open to the public.
Richard Poore or Poor was a medieval English bishop best known for his role in the establishment of Salisbury Cathedral and the City of Salisbury, moved from the nearby fortress of Old Sarum. He served as Bishop of Chichester, Bishop of Salisbury and Bishop of Durham.
Osmund, Count of Sées, was a Norman noble and clergyman. Following the Norman conquest of England, he served as Lord Chancellor and as the second bishop of Salisbury, or Old Sarum.
The Diocese of Salisbury is a Church of England diocese in the south of England, within the ecclesiastical Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the historic county of Dorset, and most of Wiltshire. The diocese is led by Stephen Lake, Bishop of Salisbury, and by the diocesan synod. The bishop's seat is at Salisbury Cathedral.
Bishop Wordsworth's School is a Church of England boys' grammar school in Salisbury, Wiltshire for boys aged 11 to 18. The school is regularly amongst the top-performing schools in England, and in 2010 was the school with the best results in the English Baccalaureate. It was granted academy status in March 2011 and is an Additional Member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. It is within the grounds of Salisbury Cathedral, adjacent to the Cathedral School.
Founded by King Henry VIII in 1541, The King's School is a state-funded Church of England Cathedral Chorister School located in Peterborough, England. It is the Chorister School for Peterborough Cathedral. Former pupils are known as Old Petriburgians.
Sarum College is a centre of theological learning in Salisbury, England. The college was established in 1995 and sits within the cathedral close on the north side of Salisbury Cathedral.
The Bishop of Salisbury is the ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of Salisbury in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers much of the counties of Wiltshire and Dorset. The see is in the City of Salisbury where the bishop's seat is in the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The current bishop is Stephen Lake.
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Old Sarum Cathedral was a Catholic and Norman cathedral at old Salisbury, now known as Old Sarum, between 1092 and 1220. Only its foundations remain, in the north-west quadrant of the circular outer bailey of the site, about 2 miles (3.2 km) north of the centre of modern Salisbury, Wiltshire, in the United Kingdom. The cathedral was the seat of the bishops of Salisbury during the early Norman period and the original source of the Sarum Rite.
Benedict Nichols, also spelt Nicholls, was a priest and bishop of the Roman Catholic Church, successively a parish priest in England, a canon of Salisbury Cathedral, and Bishop of Bangor and Bishop of St David's in Wales.
Norwich School is a selective private day school in the close of Norwich Cathedral, Norwich. Among the oldest schools in the United Kingdom, it has a traceable history to 1096 as an episcopal grammar school established by Herbert de Losinga, first Bishop of Norwich. In the 16th century the school came under the control of the city of Norwich and moved to Blackfriars' Hall following a successful petition to Henry VIII. The school was refounded in 1547 in a royal charter granted by Edward VI and moved to its current site beside the cathedral in 1551. In the 19th century it became independent of the city and its classical curriculum was broadened in response to the declining demand for classical education following the Industrial Revolution.
Gilbert Kymer was Dean of Salisbury Cathedral, Chancellor of Oxford University, and a physician.
Truro Cathedral School was a Church of England school for boys in Truro, Cornwall. An ancient school refounded in 1549 as the Truro Grammar School, after the establishment of Truro Cathedral in the last quarter of the 19th century it was responsible for educating the cathedral's choristers and became known as the Cathedral School.
Wren Hall is a Grade I listed building in Salisbury Cathedral Close, Wiltshire, England.
St Osmund's Church is a Roman Catholic church in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. It was designed by Augustus Pugin in the Gothic Revival style and built in 1847–1848. It is on Exeter Street, opposite Bishop Wordsworth's School, in the city centre. It is a Grade II listed building.
The College of the Valley Scholars of St Nicholas, sometimes called the Valley College and De Vaux College, was a seat of learning in Salisbury, England.
References
↑ Salisbury Cathedral School Motto: "Domine dilexi decorem domus tuae" Psalm 25:8: 'I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of thy house'. [Originally suggested as the School's motto by Bishop George Moberly - c.1885]
1 2 Pugh, R.B.; Crittall, Elizabeth, eds. (1956). "The cathedral of Salisbury: From the foundation to the fifteenth century". A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 3. London: University of London. Retrieved 24 October 2020– via British History Online.
↑ Nicholas Carlisle, A Concise Description of the Endowed Grammar Schools in England and Wales, Volume 2 (Baldwin, Cradock and Joy, 1818), pp. 746, 747
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Osmond, Stephen E., Register of Past & Present Pupils of the Cathedral School Salisbury (5th.Ed. 2002; publ. Salisbury Cathedral School Association)
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