Building commenced in November 1849, the building was for 150 pupils with a moveable partition to form the two rooms, one for boys, one for girls or opened to provide a single block. The school was built with a master’s house attached and opened in July 1849 at a cost of £384 18s 5½d. Miss Anne Shaw was responsible for most of the fund-raising, paper-work and a lot of the necessary finance. Amongst contributors from outside the parish, £20 was received from Queen Adelaide (widow of William IV), £30 from the National Society and £150 from the Committee of the Council on Education.
The school was built with an attached house to provide a home for the head-teacher, this is now let by the church trustees. Over the years alterations have taken place, the ceilings have been lowered and very disappointingly the lovely solid oak door disappeared to be replaced with an ordinary door leading to the toilets and exit door. This building houses our Ash classroom and the pre-school room.
A new building was erected in the 1950's which housed another classroom and the kitchen where Mrs Stubbs used to cook, meals were famously delicious – she lived over the road and used to pop home for additional ingredients! As numbers declined, the kitchen became a place to simply serve meals from and wash-up. Meals continue to be cooked at Hartington School, they are transported here, served from a table in the dining room and the kitchen has been converted to the office and staff room. This is a huge improvement from the small partitioned area at the end of the classroom.
