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Old College |
The College is so called because it was
originally a free school, one of the
earliest in England to be founded by a
woman. The building was originally part
of an endowment by Dame Thomasine
Percival - the widow of Sir John
Percival, who was Lord Mayor of London
in 1498. Thomasine, whose maiden name
was Bonaventure, was born in the village
of Week St Mary in 1450. The story of
how she first married Richard Bunsby, a
wool merchant from London, and then
further improved her position and
fortune by two later marriages has been
told by many Cornish writers, including
Parson Hawker of Coombe association.
Lady Percival must have been an unusual
woman of her time, because soon after
the death of her third husband in 1504,
she returned to the village to devote
the remainder of her life to charitable
work in the neighbourhood.
In 1506 she
founded a school, appointing her cousin
John Dinham of Wortham to oversee the
building work and when she died, she
left the school and a chantry to John’s
discretion. She also settled a stipend
for the schoolmaster, who was to be a
graduate of Oxford or Cambridge and to
pray for her soul in the parish church
of St Mary.
The Commissioners of 1546 assigned to
enquire into chantries, hospitals,
colleges, free chapels, etc. reported
that "that ye sayde Chauntrye is a great
comfort to all ye countries, for yt they
yt lyst may sett their children to borde
there and have them taught freely, for
ye wch purpose there is an house and
offices appointed by the foundation
accordingly".
Unfortunately two years later another
Commission reported that the school at
St Mary Week was "now yn decaye ..." and
this was followed with a declaration by
the Lord Protector Somerset that the
school should be moved to Launceston.
We will never
really know what happened to turn,
within a few years, a flourishing school
which was serving the local community
well, into such an unwanted and
unmanageable liability that its assets
had to be transferred to the similar
foundation of the adjoining town.
From 1549-1725 the buildings were owned
by the Prideau family, who sold them in
the early 18th century to Thomas Pitt,
first Lord Londonderry, and a first
cousin to the Earl of Chatham. His
sister Lucy married the first Earl of
Stanhope, one of the most distinguished
soldiers in the reign of Queen Anne, and
the property came through her to the
Stanhopes. The 7th Earl of Stanhope sold
it in 1910, together with his Holsworthy
estate. Mr Colwill from whom the
Landmark Trust bought it, had lived at
the College all his life, and so had two
generations of the Colwills before him. |
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This famous building in the village is
now owned by The Landmark Trust.
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The buildings of the former College were
gradually pillaged to provide building
materials for other village buildings -
dressed granite jambs, heads and tympani
can be seen built into the walls of many
neighbouring cottages, although enough
survives of the College to give us some
idea of the imposing group which stood
on the site in the reign of Edward VI.
The granite dressings of the windows,
with the slightly ogee form of the head
of the lights and the arch of the porch
doorway, are markedly similar to those
at Wortham Manor and there are other
details which suggest that the same
designer and craftsman were used on the
two buildings, possibly under the
direction of John Dinham. The granite
plinth with the single course of dressed
ashlar in brown sandstone immediately
above it and the remainder of the walls
in coursed freestone, tympanum over the
entrance doorway, the stair turret with
its granite quatrefoil window and the
lintel of the chimney piece are all
features which can be seen in the house
that John Dinham was enlarging
simultaneously at Wortham.
Unfortunately there nothing remains to
suggest the form of the Tudor roof,
floor beams and screen of the original
building, but it is probable that they
were similar to those at Wortham,
Trecarrell and Cotehele, all buildings
in the locality which were extended at
the end of the 15th century or beginning
of the next. The present roof trusses
are of rough carpentry which the
builders always intended to conceal
above the ceiling. It is probable that
the first floor was inserted and the
roof replaced in the late 17th or early
eighteenth century when the windows on
the north elevation were also changed to
wood casements and a culm oven built
into the medieval fireplace.
Landmark removed the more recent
partitions and staircase. The first
floor was replaced slightly below the
17th century level because the original
turret stairs were dangerously steep and
so it was necessary to lower the
landing. The roof was relaid in salvaged
rag slates to continue the colour,
texture and scale of other roofs on the
neighbourhood.
The Courtyard
Originally the College was the central
building in a large courtyard. You
entered it from the North, ahead of the
present front door. In the courtyard was
the well, which is contemporary with the
house; to your right as you came in you
would have seen the castellated wall
much the same as it is now, though it
was then rather longer. On either side
of the door there would have been gothic
windows like the ones in the south wall;
probably two to the right and several to
the left, because the school building
extended considerably further to the
left than it does now and would have
joined up with the west side of the
courtyard, where there is now nothing
but a farm gate.
The castellated wall has been repointed
but not otherwise changed. The little
door may perhaps have been the entrance
to some very steep stairs leading to the
school bell at the top of the wall; but
this is by no means certain. One of the
stones in the doorway has been dressed
the wrong way round; perhaps it came
from somewhere else.
Interior
The sitting room is the old schoolroom.
Originally it was open to the roof. Mr
Pearn describes in his paper the changes
that were made in about 1700, at the
same time as the north wall was rebuilt.
The ceiling that was then put in cut
across the tops of the gothic windows,
and in order to avoid this the present
ceiling has been made to slope upwards
in front of them. The window on the
north side furthest from the door was
blocked up when Landmark took over. The
fireplace has been restored to its
original shape. Above the fireplace is a
relieving arch, very typical of early
houses in the area.
The Kitchen
The floor is 2" lower than it was
originally, as can be seen if you look
at the mouldings at the base of the
original doorway onto the stairs. The
fireplace is a 19th century one in the
gothic style, replacing an
undistinguished modern one.
The Staircase
This was originally extremely steep;
probably it led to a first floor
dormitory above the present kitchen. In
order to use it, it had to be rebuilt
less steeply; hence the door high up in
the wall on the first floor and the
little landing. |
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• We
are grateful to the Landmark Trust for
the above article
www.landmarktrust.org.uk |
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The College is available for
holidays for up to 5 people throughout
the year. The rental income pays for
the buildings on-going maintenance. For
further information please contact the
Landmark Trust using the above link. |
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