The National School in Rothley

The National School in Rothley was written to coincide with the reopening of the restored school building in School Street, Rothley,in 1996, telling the story of how it came to be built in 1837.

After ceasing to be the Infant Dept. of Rothley School in 1971 the building had an ongoing life as a hall for the parish church until 1994, when it was closed as dangerous. The very full restoration of 1995/6 produced a building fit for another 100 years.

The author went back to original documents held at the Church of England's Record Centre in Bermondsey to discover the struggles and transactions that led to a single barn-like schoolroom going up in 1837, a project led by the then Vicar, William Ackworth. By 1870 the single room was inadequate, and Rothley's famous Victorian cleric, Richard Burton, led a scheme to add a second room, and to bind them both together with an impressive Victorian frontage by the Leicester Architect, Goddard.

The book goes on to record the many projects that saw an additional school built and progressively extended on Mountsorrel Lane. Other chapters in the book republish some of Pam Britt's 'Glimpses from the School Log Book', a collection of recollections from four past pupils called 'Schooldays Remembered' and the story of the two final building projects of 1971 and 1996.

This book can be found in the Local Studies Section in Rothley Library.

(Information at October 2006)