Dear Editor – Jan ’25

18th January 2025 | Letters

Dear Editor

IT’S 2025 ! HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the Grammar School Hall (GSH)! 

Happy birthday to you; Happy birthday to you; Happy three hundredth birthday; Happy ter – cen – ten – ary. 

1 – Understanding:

Surely the GSH was opened in 1936 not 300 years ago? That depends on which Grammar School Hall is referred to because, in its near seven hundred years history, the Grammar School has used several premises for gatherings, some large, some small and some not in Kibworth.

2 – Costs Notwithstanding: these included

In the 20th century:

  • the single storey building opposite the Manor House on High Street ;
  • the Old School Surgery premises opposite the Village Hall;
  • the rooms used by the nursery on Paget Street behind the Library;
  • the Methodist Schoolroom on School Road.

In the 17th. century :

  • the then “new” schoolhouse ordered by the Commissioners for Charitable Uses in 1615. Completed c.1630, in Kilpeck’s Close (near to the 2024 new railway bridge) and accompanied by a rise in rents from £31.12s.6d. to £58.5s.0d. of school lands, and houses affecting 5 & 3/4 yardlands. 3 tenants in Beauchamp, 2 in Harcourt and 3 in Smeeton.

In the 16th century :

  • the Crown Inn at Great Glen used in 1650 to determine a dispute between the School and land tenants .

In the 15th. century :

  • the ‘then steepled’ St. Wilfrid’s. 

In the 14th century  :

  • in Smeeton Westerby when land was handed over by Robert de Standby and Robert Chapman for trustees to manage to fund the establishment of a school.

3 – Long Standing:

So where is the GSH that this year reaches its tercentenary? Opposite the School

Road / School Walk junction. (excluding the House attic), a listed property in a conservation area, that is now privately owned residential properties. From 1927 to 1955 it was the home of headmaster John Edmundson Elliot, whose near thirty year headship saw the school grow from 37 pupils in 1927 to 525 in 1955. (Deserving of a blue plaque?)

4 – Expanding:

The 1936 hall had suffered from vandalism, and the ravages of the weather and was in need of renovation but as the 20th. century moved towards its close, Kibworth Beauchamp Parish Council felt that, despite immense hard work and much fundraising being required, this was, to quote the then Chair, “a never to be repeated opportunity”. Thus, it was brought back to life, this time as a community venue.

5 – Rebranding:

During 2024 both the Grammar School Hall trustees and Beauchamp Parish Council have had to deal with financial restraints, some resignations and delay in the extensions at present being built. I applaud the time given by these bodies, especially noting that past and present members were/are unpaid volunteers. However, I was somewhat concerned when reading in the December Chronicle of the REBRANDING of the GSH now as the Kibworth Community Hub.

6 – Outstanding: 

I suggest that this may not, of its own, avoid the possibility in years to come, (when the final phases are completed), of this 1936 hall eventually ending up as an Any Hub, Any Hall, Any Village, Anywhere building.  I trust there will be distinctive prominence given within the final upgraded premises to recording, for future generations, the near seven centuries of history from which this GSH emerged. Having been discarded bit by bit, starting with the  closure of KBGS in 1964,  the 1936 GSH is all that is left of the school  in public use.  

7 – Is History “Demanding”?

Opening issue 442 (October 2022) at page 19 in the Chronicle online archives, shows an extraordinary alumni. We surely owe it to the countless generations of pupils, staff and governors not to let reference and acknowledgement of one of the country’s oldest schools, (here in our village), die under our watch.  Plans for the PRESENT Hub will hopefully yet preserve and applaud the PAST for generations in the FUTURE to celebrate – “..the school appears to be one of the oldest  in the kingdom“, (listed online as one of  England’s oldest schools of the 14th century ) – here in Kibworth.

Roger Garratt

Pupil and trainee teacher at KBGS.

Teacher at KHS