Hello there
Thank you for your interest. I have inserted an excerpt from my great-grandfather's memoirs for you. He was born at Hergest court in 1861.
With a natural inclination to use my left hand instead of my right when starting to write, they told me that they would tie my left hand behind my back when I went to school, so I took the hint. My early school days were spent at Mahallum School presided over by Mrs Schofield and her daughters, and in some way under the patronage of some county gentry of the name of Romilly who lived at Huntington Court about half a mile away. What interested us kiddies most was that every year when the strawberries were ripe we all assembled at the Court where we were regaled with strawberries and cream, plenty of cakes and drinks. Various games were indulged in and all used to home, happy and tired.
The distance from home to the school was about two miles one way along the main road, which in summer time was very pretty or rather in spring dotted along the hedge rows with primroses and violets and later if you looked carefully wild strawberries including the stately foxglove and the trail of sweet scented honeysuckle on our homeward journey. When we had more time at our disposal, we wandered back through the meadows on the other side of the River Arrow Valley of which some two or three miles of its course passed through our lands of which more anon. The walk was a pretty one. On the way we crossed the Arrow, and passed through a wood were later boy like. We used to chase the nimble squirrels from bough to bough. Looking through a vista of the wood I have seen it like a blue haze with pretty bluebells framed with ferns and surrounding bush. Nearer home the path lead along the side of a bushy bank at the foot of which were flat meadows through which the River pursued it course. The meadows in springtime I have seen spotted with crocuses, and almost a blaze of gold composed of cowslips, oxslips and daffodils,
In speaking of the Romillys I don’t know whether it was a matter of economy. They used to hire from a hostelry in Kington. They kept their own coach, and it was quite a frequent occurrence, to see the driver dressed in breeches and top boots with hunting cap and short jacket riding one of the pair of horses postilion.
My next school experience was at Grammar School in Kington, [founded and endowed in 1619 by Lady Margaret Hawkins, daughter of Charles Vaughan of Hergest Court, and at one time, one of the ladies of Queen Elizabeth’s bedchamber. She was later married to Sir John Hawkins, an Admiral in Queen Elizabeth’s Navy, and reputed to be the first Englishman to take part in the famous and murderous slave trade in the West Indies. In 1595, with Admiral Drake, he went on an expedition against the Spanish in the West Indies. This undertaking was not successful because of the lack of agreement between the leaders, a condition that also lessened the success of Grog Vernon some 145 years later. In my time the school was] presided over by two Reverend gentlemen. The Rev W. Beble, and the Rev Noah Walsh. The Rev Beble was very thin and Rheumaticky. He was rather fond of the cane, and I remember one school mate he was rather fond of experimenting upon. He would say, “Bach, come here.” The master would grit his teeth. “You know it hurts me more than it does you, but I must do it!” His hands were so crippled with rheumatism that he had to slip the cane between his fingers instead of grasping it in his hand and I believe it was a painful operation for both. Welsh boys used to go there to learn English and what use to arouse my admiration and perhaps envy was the way they used to be able to parse sentences. I must say that to me at that time it was in the nature of double Dutch. The Rev Noah Walsh was a stout, clean shaven, sedate individual. He had a sort of a desk like and old-fashioned Church pew, where on special subjects such as French or Latin, he would take the boys singly and I have known on occasion were rather slow for a piece of cobblers wax to be placed on his seat which holds fairly fast when you wish to rise in a hurry. And then when he wished to relieve his feeling with a free use of his cane, there would already be inserted up the holes several horse hairs which was supposed to have the effect of causing it to split when used.
After spending several years there I went to a Mr Everard’s Private School, where you were supposed to acquire certain accomplishments but I fear didn’t acquire much. So ended my schooldays, which I fear I did not fully appreciate at the time.
