Northallerton Village school is 150 years old this month

The Education Act of 1870 created local school boards which were charged with opening primary schools, paid for by the rates, and providing non-denominational lessons.

Appleton’s first state school was built by Thomas Peacock of Northallerton but all the joinery, ironmongery, plumbing, painting and glazing work was done by James Park of the village.

“The building is of brick, without any attempt at ornamentation, and is considered a very neat but substantial and well arranged building,” said the Darlington & Stockton Times.

“The whole of the work has been finished in a very satisfactory manner, and the total cost, including the site, buildings, desks etc, is rather under £4 per scholar, which is one of the cheapest Board Schools yet built, if not the cheapest, and is also believed to be the first new Board School opened in Yorkshire.”

The first school at Appleton Wiske, which opened 150 years ago this week. A couple of the female pupils at the front of this brilliant Victorian picture are wearing fabulous hats. The school was demolished 40 years ago when the current primary school was built beside it. With huge thanks to Ken Blackwood

The school was at the south end of the village looking towards the river. It had a main room 39ft by 20ft and a classroom 12ft by 20ft.

“The desks and seats are Messrs Sidebotham and Co’s patent ‘national desk’, which form either a table, a desk with a gentle slope or a very comfortable seat when the desk is turned down for the back to rest against,” said the D&S.

Mr Wilson, formerly of Great Smeaton, was the teacher and he was due to have 98 pupils aged between five and 10, but the average attendance was only 54.

The school was rebuilt in a neighbouring field 40 years ago and the original site has now got houses on it.

LAST week we told how Sir Roger de Fery’s bravery in slaying a wild boar which had terrorised Ferryhill was being commemorated with a new information board outside Sainsbury’s. There is a stone near the store, at Cleves Cross, which is said to mark the spot where the vicious beast was killed about 800 years ago.

“When I was a young lad in the 1940s, we used to go past Cleves Cross Farm to get to Doggy Wood via the Carrs,” says Alan Blenkiron, who grew up in East Howle. “In the farmyard stone wall was a stone about 18 inches square on which was inscribed a record of Sir Roger killing the boar at this place. Whatever happened to this valuable artefact?”

The stone (above) is safe! Some people say the stone is medieval but Memories has a hunch that it was put up after 1867 when a pit was found in Cleves Cross Farm which was believed to be the one into which Sir Roger lured the supersize pig to its death.

When houses were built on the site of the farm about 40 years ago, the weathered stone was taken to Ferryhill Town Hall in the Market Place where it remained in the council chamber, although only a couple of years ago, it was mounted in the town hall wall facing the memorial garden. It is directly beneath the rather splendid stained glass window (below) depicting the story which was installed for the millennium.

The information board has been installed by children who are community ambassadors and, by chance, the next meeting of the Ferryhill History Society on February 22 will be addressed by Tabitha Dodd, from the Investing in Children Project. This Lottery-funded project enthuses children about their past by getting them to discover what schools were like or what children did in the mines. A large part of their research is talking to older people about their experiences, so volunteers are needed…

She will explain all at Ferryhill Station Club at 7.30pm on Wednesday. Everyone is welcome.