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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
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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.
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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