74 BOROUGH OF LEWISHAM. 
The whole of the left hand side of the hill was, prior to 1652, 
part of Blackheath, and was granted by the Court Leet and the 
Lord of the Manor (Raynold Graham) to the Rev. Abraham Colfe, 
as a site for his projected Grammar School. It is described by 
Colfe as of about two acres in area, ‘‘ full of great pits and holes,” 
and he was authorised to enclose this, provided he left a way one 
rod broad into ‘‘ Coneyberry Field.” This way and the field are 
now called Walerand Road. 
A Grammar School had been founded in 1574 by the Rev. John 
Glynn, Vicar of Lewisham, whose executors obtained a charter of 
incorporation from Queen Elizabeth. When Mr. Colfe became 
Vicar in 1610, this school had languished for want of funds, and he 
was instrumental in the appointment of a fresh body of Governors, 
of which he was one. Later on he found it necessary to 
remodel the scheme and endow the school himself, and appointed 
the Worshipful Company of Leathersellers as perpetual Governors, 
for which purpose they were specially incorporated by Act of 
Parliament in 1664. Mr. Colfe erected the buildings himself, and 
the new school was opened on roth June, 1652. Like all old 
Foundation Grammar Schools certain free places were reserved for 
deserving boys of the poorer classes. These are now allotted as 
scholarships. The school was to be conducted on the same lines 
as ‘‘ Merchant Taylors, Pauls, and the free school of Eaton.” In 
or about 1750, when the Rev. Edward Norton, an old Westminster 
boy, was headmaster, the school was enlarged by the addition of 
a wooden building on the north side for an additional number of 
boarders. This is shown in the view published in 1831 (Plate 22). 
In a room over the big schoolroom was for many years 
accommodated the Founder’s Library, which was, with additions, 
maintained as a Free Library for the Hundred of Blackheath. 
Owing to settlements in the walls, this upper room was removed 
in 1807, and a wooden tower at the eastern end of the schoolroom 
erected, in the lower part of which the library was housed. The 
books are now almost entirely out of date, and are not of general 
interest, although some are good specimens of early typography. 
One contains Archbishop Cranmer’s signature. 
In 1890 the whole of the old buildings of the School were 
demolished, as the result of a new scheme, dated 15th September, 
1887, and new buildings were erected at the cost of the 
Leathersellers’ Company. These were added to in 1897 as a 
Jubilee gift, the total cost being about £12,000. 
In the 18th century the school is spoken of as ‘‘a considerable 
boarding school.” This element disappeared in 1880, and it is now 
a Day School only. 
The ground above and below the school, formerly the 
headmaster’s garden, was let on lease for building in 1861. In 
the upper portion, between Eliot Park and Walerand Road, was a 
spring, which supplied the house with water before the days of 
Water Companies and Boards. 
