schooling abenhall ? (General)

by slowhands :-) , Thursday, June 23, 2005, 17:15 (7083 days ago) @ Susan Batess

I suspect that children from Horsepool Bottom would have been eductaed in Abenhall. < someone else may knon better ! >

In 1833 a Sunday school supported by voluntary contributions and teaching 20 children was begun in Abenhall (Footnote 92) and in 1846 the parish had two dame schools with 20 and 6 day and 29 and 7 Sunday pupils respectively. (Footnote 93) A school built west of the church near the Littledean-Mitcheldean road in 1850 housed a day school, which in 1875, as Abenhall C. of E. school, had a daily attendance of 30 and was supported by voluntary contributions and pence. It was then owned and controlled by Henrietta Davies (Footnote 94) and later it was supported by the Barton family. The school, which had an average attendance of 50 in 1885 and 23 in 1902, (Footnote 95) became in 1903 one of the first to be closed by the county education committee, the children being transferred to schools at Mitcheldean and Plump Hill. (Footnote 96) The building continued in use as a Sunday school and was apparently given to the parish by the representatives of Katherine Barton in 1913. It served as a parish room for many years (Footnote 97) but was unused in 1988.
In 1930 the county education committee opened a senior school for Mitcheldean and adjoining parishes in new buildings in the north of Abenhall. (Footnote 98) The school, the average attendance at which was 181 by 1938, (Footnote 99) became a secondary modern school under the 1944 Educ ation Act and at a reorganization of Forest of Dean secondary education in 1985 was made a comprehensive school called Dene Magna school. New buildings had been added to the site in 1961 and 1980, and in 1988 there were 568 pupils on the roll, drawn from a wide area including Westbury-on-Severn and Ruardean. (Footnote 1)

From: 'Abenhall', A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume V: Bledisloe Hundred, St. Briavels Hundred, The Forest of Dean (1996), pp. 93-101. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=23253. Date accessed: 22 June 2005.