The Old School House History

The Old School and its house in Bolnhurst were built in 1875 by the Rev Harvey on the site of an earlier school founded around 1720. It remained as a village school until the 1950s when the children transferred to the school at nearby Keysoe.

The School Log from the late 1800s survives in the local Archive Office and there are many interesting, amusing and sometimes sad entries within it. The village was known as a poor village being situated on ‘poor, bad, wet lands’ which were considered difficult to cultivate and gave poor returns to the farmers. Most men in the village were farm labourers and most women made the traditional lace of the area.

The school was fortunate in having a wonderful mistress Miss Bayes, [later to become Mrs Harper when she married one of her ex-pupils!] who taught at the school from 1906 until its closure in 1950.
The house, which was built for the school master or mistress was, in later years, lived in before its closure by a local gamekeeper and his family who brought up a large family in just a ‘two up and two down’ cottage. Since then it has been extended and updated by subsequent owners to become the home which welcomes you today.