A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



then shrunk to 140 a y ear > f which 13, the customary amount, was 

 assigned for a bread dole. 



There are now 35 boys in the school, of whom 8 are boarders. 



A new scheme is in preparation by the Board of Education by which 

 this, like other small grammar schools in rural districts, will be enabled to 

 call in the softer sex to increase the numbers and give a new sphere of 

 usefulness to this old foundation. 



STOW ON THE WOLD GRAMMAR SCHOOL 



Thomas Billing, 1 Chief Justice, and others conveyed lands in St. Olave, 

 Southwark, to William Chestre and others. William Chestre, by will in 

 May, 1476, declared the uses of these lands, including the maintenance of a 

 Trinity chantry in Stow church. These lands came to Richard Chestre by 

 survivorship, he having only one daughter, Joan, married to Thomas Bittles- 

 den, against whom William Martin recovered in 1487. He 3 conveyed the 

 lands, described as 'Glean Alley in St. OlifF's parish in Southwark,' to trustees 

 in Stow, and appointed that 6 a year were to be paid to the chantry priest, 

 who was to keep a school and instruct the children of the town. The 

 school must have been duly built, as in the reign of Queen Elizabeth it is 

 spoken of as ' Tenementum vocatum le Schole House modo ruinatum, et in 

 decasu, in Stowe in le Owlde juxta cimeterium ecclesie.' It was probably 

 rebuilt in 1594, as an old house adjoining the churchyard bears the inscrip- 

 tion : ' Schola institutionis puerorum Ricardi Shepham civis et mercatoris 

 Londinensis impensis cxstructa 1594.' Richard Shepham, 8 citizen and mer- 

 chant tailor of London, by will dated 20 July, 1 604, devised lands in South- 

 wark for the perpetual maintenance of a school and almshouse in Stow. The 

 school was established by a charter of James I in 1612, which ordained that 

 there should be ' one Free Grammar School for the instruction of boys and 

 children in the Latin tongue and other more polite literature and science,' 

 and nominated the bailiffs and burgesses of Chipping Norton as governors, 

 and the governors covenanted that they would appoint a discreet, pious, and 

 learned schoolmaster. 



The school was existing at the time of the Charity Commissioners' 

 Report in 1829, but though subscriptions were raised 'to repair the 

 Grammar School' in 1848,* it seems to have come to an end in that year, 

 and the income, a rent-charge of 13 6s. 8J., was paid to the national 

 school. 



WINCHCOMBE GRAMMAR SCHOOL 



In the Valor Ecclesiasticus 6 of 1535 we find the abbey of Winchcombe 

 paying 



In alms and payments (elemosinis et pencionibus) by foundation and ordinance of Lady 

 Jane Huddelston, relict of John Huddilston (sic) knight, yearly to the Master of the 

 Grammar School of Winchcombe, to the Master of the boys singing in the monastery 

 aforesaid, and for the maintenance of 6 boys in the said monastery being instructed and taught 

 in the art of grammar and of song ; and also for keeping the anniversaries of the said Lady Jane 

 and the said Sir John her late husband at the monasteries of Hayles and Winchcombe yearly 

 with distributions in bread to the poor on the said anniversary days, 21 6s. %d. 



1 Rudder, Hist. ofGlouc. ; not Belleny, as he prints. 



1 Atkyn's Ancient and Present State ofGlouc. 366. ' Char. Com. Rep. xxi, 1 76. 



4 Sch. /?. Rep. xv, 101. Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), ii, 459. 



420 



