Threshfield School

This is a grammar school, now a primary school, founded in 1674 by Matthew Hewitt and altered in the mid-to-late 19th century. It is constructed of coursed gritstone with a graduated stone slate roof. The building is two storeys high, with two windows on the first floor. Quoins are present. A low, two-storey porch is situated on the far left, featuring a board door within a chamfered quoined surround. The chamfer is moulded, with the moulding extending across the segmental-arched doorhead, and a continuous hoodmould steps up over the lintel. The building's windows are recessed chamfered mullion windows, with three stepped lights and a hoodmould to the porch's first floor. The ground floor has three windows of four lights, under a continuous hoodmould. The first floor has two windows of three lights, set under the eaves. Moulded kneelers and gable coping are visible on the main range, and the porch has three bulbous finials. A corniced stack is located far to the left. The right return features a five-light window with a hoodmould on the ground floor and a tall four-light window on the first floor. Internally, the building no longer possesses a first floor. A 17th-century fireplace is present in the left gable wall at first-floor level, and there is evidence of a stair position to the right of it. Matthew Hewitt, a member of a local land-owning family, endowed the school to provide for a master and an usher; the master’s heated room was on the first floor, and the small room over the porch is believed to have been the usher’s office. Hewitt also funded scholarships to St. John's College, Cambridge, with a preference for pupils from Threshfield School. Until 1730 boys were sent yearly to Cambridge, but between 1790 and 1820 only three went; the endowment was later transferred to the general revenues of the college in 1859. Internal alterations occurred during this period or shortly after. The local historian T.D. Whitaker (1759-1821), a former pupil, recorded spending solitary evenings in the upper chamber of the grammar school, before attending St. John’s College, Cambridge.