124 | BOROUGH OF LEWISHAM. 
Schools. The “Reading School founded by Mr. Colfe seems to 
have occupied the place of an elementary school for boys for 
many years. In 1699 Dean Stanhope and his wife started a school 
for girls, to which they left a small endowment. In 1833 new 
schools for both boys and girls were established, on the National 
System, on land belonging to the Earl of Dartmouth, who, in 
1856, conveyed the site and buildings to the Vicar for the above 
purpose. The buildings have been enlarged from time to time by 
subscription. 
Opposite St. Mary’s Schools, and adjoining the churchyard, 
stood, until 1907, a weather-boarded timber frame house of the 
PLATE 55.—COTTAGES OPPOSITE ST. Mary's CHURCH (NOW NOS. 303 TO 309)- 
18th century, known as Church House. It was not parish property, 
but its site and name suggest that it occupied the position of the 
medieval church house, a building which seems to have existed 
in every parish, where various parochial property was kept, ales 
were brewed, and persons coming from outlying hamlets to church 
could rest themselves. The church house of medizval days dis- 
appeared in the times which followed the Reformation, and has 
been resuscitated in recent years in the Parochial Hall. 
