Education through the parish church
Before Alfold possessed a purpose-built classroom, the parish church provided the main place where the community encountered formal teaching. Children learned prayers and responses by hearing them repeated, followed the changing seasons through festivals and fasts, and listened to sermons, notices and readings. The bells called families from scattered farms and cottages, while the font, altar, wall surfaces and church furnishings gave familiar form to stories heard from childhood.
By the nineteenth century, some children began their lessons in private rooms. These small schools were commonly kept by women and became known as dame schools. Several ages could be taught together, with beginners learning letters and prayers while older pupils read, copied words, practised sums or worked at sewing. Fees, family work and the condition of the roads shaped the number of children present on any day.
The Booker dame school and the Almshouse
Opposite the Almshouse, the Booker family kept a small dame school in one of the old Crown Cottages, the house later used as Alfold Stores. Mrs Salmon remembered Mrs Booker teaching there, while George Sparkes recalled the same school. Reverend Cobb, rector of Alfold from 1920 to 1924, recorded their memories in Alfold: The Story of a Surrey Village. The tile-hung cottage which would become the village stores retained a substantial oak frame: a central tie-beam, king post and great braces crossed the interior, closely resembling the timber construction in the church. Part of the internal brickwork was believed to date from the Tudor period.
The old Almshouse, a picturesque half-timbered building immediately below the churchyard, near the junction of Rosemary Lane and Loxwood Road. Its upper windows projected on corbels, and swifts nested beneath the eaves.
Around 1870 the rector, the Reverend Richard John Sparkes, dedicated the Almshouse as a church school. Mrs Booker lifted her young son Walter to an upper window of Crown Cottage, from which he watched the ceremony. The pupils then moved into the Almshouse school and out of the Dame school. The Booker family were so upset they left the church in protest and later joined the Cokelers, the independent religious community centred at Loxwood.
John Piper, born in 1860, carried a different memory of the Almshouse school into old age. The boys called the young swifts beneath the eaves ‘squeakers’. They caught the birds, took them to Cranleigh and released them for a race back to Alfold. The swifts reached their nests within a few minutes, well ahead of the boys returning along the road.
An evening at the village school
In December 1871 severe weather failed to prevent a large audience gathering at Alfold village school for a penny reading. The Reverend Sparkes presided while local residents read stories, recited verse, sang and played music. Comic pieces shared the programme with songs and more serious readings.
The School Board takes shape
The Elementary Education Act of 1870 created elected school boards in districts requiring more places. Early in 1874 the Education Department issued its decision for Alfold. The official notice called for one school, in or near the village, with accommodation for eighty children.
Ratepayers met at the Crown Inn in May 1874 and agreed to form an Alfold School Board. The Reverend Sparkes chaired the meeting. The Earl of Onslow, whose family owned land in the parish, gave a site for the school and the adjoining teacher’s house. Plans were prepared by Henry Peak, a Guildford architect. Newspaper notices followed the progress of the work through builders’ estimates, tenders and revised arrangements during 1874 and 1875.
Opening Alfold Mixed Board School
The new Alfold Mixed Board School opened on Monday 25 September 1876. The Reverend Sparkes attended the first morning, and forty-three children entered the school. Their previous learning varied widely. By the following week sixty-six names appeared on the register, and by 1 November the total had reached eighty-eight, already beyond the eighty places required two years earlier.
The school logbook began with the opening day and followed the life of the classroom week by week. Its printed instructions required the head teacher to enter progress and significant events at least once each week. Inspectors examined the volume during their visits, and every entry remained part of the permanent school record. Lessons moved from reading and copywork to arithmetic, Bible passages and singing. The rector, members of the School Board and government inspectors appeared regularly. On 10 October heavy rain reduced attendance to twenty-eight. Eight days later exceptionally fine weather brought a half-day holiday. Rough rain in December left only fifteen children in the morning class. Miss Sparkes visited on 2 October and listened to the singing. On 11 October the Reverend Sparkes and Mr Johnson examined the school and agreed that the mistress needed more help. The government inspector arrived on 25 October with the Reverend Sparkes and Mr Tumbrell; attendance that day was recorded as very good.
Country life continued to determine the school day. Snow and flooded lanes lengthened the journey from outlying cottages. Measles and heavy colds moved quickly through a crowded room. During the winter of 1880 sickness and intense cold reduced the classes and led to a temporary closure. Boys were sometimes kept at home when work was required on the farms.
Miss Blish served as the first recorded head teacher and resigned in December 1877. Agnes Ellison took charge in January 1878. Emily Johns followed in January 1881 and remained for more than eleven years.
Fire at the old Almshouse
The Almshouse remained beside the churchyard after the Board School opened. A fire partly destroyed it around 1880, and the damaged structure was pulled down during the rectorship of Reverend Norton. The school bell survived. George Muggeridge of Alfold House, later kept it at Velhurst and explained that his father had used it at Oakhurst Farm. The bell was tied high in the finest cherry tree, with a long cord running back to the house, and was rung when birds settled among the fruit.
The chapel schoolroom
Alfold gained another schoolroom when the Baptist Chapel opened in 1883. Samuel Barrow and his wife financed the chapel buildings from family wealth made in the tanning trade. Barrow had begun farm work at the age of nine and remembered Sunday School as the chief source of his own education.
Sunday afternoons brought children into the new room for scripture lessons and hymns. Older pupils prepared recitations for anniversary meetings. The Band of Hope organised special gatherings with speeches, banners and songs, and annual excursions carried parties of children beyond the parish. The first girls entered the Sunday School register within weeks of the chapel’s opening, and anniversary services gave them regular opportunities to perform before their families.
The teachers at the School House
The 1891 census records Emily Johns living at the Board School. She was thirty-three and described as a certificated teacher. Her younger sister Leah lived with her and worked as an assistant teacher. Their home formed part of the school buildings.
Emily Johns left in May 1892. Several teachers followed before Samuel H. Challenger became head in December 1895. The 1901 census places him at the School House with his wife Sophia, who was also an elementary schoolteacher, and their young children. At Alfold House, sixteen-year-old Mabel Muggeridge was recorded as a pupil teacher, learning the profession while assisting experienced staff. Challenger remained until March 1902.
After Challenger came C. V. Barker, followed in May 1903 by M. W. R. Perry, whose wife served for a time as the infants’ mistress. John Lea began his headship in August 1910. In the 1911 census he lived at Alfold Schoolhouse with his wife Alice and their children. His headship continued until July 1920.
From Board School to First School
The Education Act of 1902 transferred responsibility from the School Board to the county education authority. The building continued as Alfold Council School. Thomas A. Streeter became head teacher in August 1920. By the mid-1930s he worked with two assistants and had 114 pupils aged from five to fourteen.
Later reorganisation reduced the age range, and the school became Alfold First School. A logbook carries its daily record from 1974 to 1993. The school closed on 1 September 1994. The first entry in the Victorian logbook, dated Monday 25 September 1876, reaches its 150th anniversary in September 2026.
