History of John Beddoes School
John Beddoes School, founded in 1565, is the second oldest Grammar School in Wales and the first to have been founded from private means, as distinct from Church property. It is thus a very old school and we can perhaps realise its age better if we remember that it was founded in the reign of Queen Elizabeth the First, the year after Shakespeare was born and 23 years before the defeat of the Spanish Armada. John Beddoes was a wealthy woollen manufacturer or 'clothier' and he provided for the establishment of a Free Grammar School in Presteigne 'to bring up the youth ..... in virtue, discipline and learning'. The school was to be maintained from the rents of certain properties in Presteigne and the neighbouring parishes. Of the original endowment, 73 acres remain to provide an income for the School today.
The school is closely connected with the Curfew, for when John Beddoes founded his school he left rent from a field known today as Bell Meadow to pay the ringer and stipulated that if the Curfew should cease to be rung then the school should be closed and its endowments reverts to his heirs. Until shortly before the First World War the Curfew was rung for half an hour at 8pm each evening, but since then the time of the ringing has been reduced to five minutes from 8.20pm to 8.25pm. The tradition continues today with financial help from Mike Oldfield, of 'Tubular Bell's' fame.
The original site of the school was in St. David's Street which then extended along what is now Church Street. The precise location is not known, though from the Church Rate Book of 1827 it would appear to have been next to Garrison House, which was the Headmaster's house for much of the nineteenth century. The school survived many vicissitudes of fortune, no doubt it closed during outbreaks of plague in 1593 when some 350 died in the town and during the outbreaks of 1610 and 1657 when hundreds more perished. The school building itself was destroyed in the great Presteigne fire of 1681 along with much more of the rest of the town. On occasions, too, neglect on the part of the schoolmaster or of the trustees took its toll.
Throughout the nineteenth century the number of pupils, all boys, attending the school fluctuated between 20 and 70. At times the school premises, which until 1869 consisted of a single room, 30 feet by 18, must have been grossly overcrowded. Then in 1869 the school was transformed into Presteigne County Secondary School, moving into new buildings on a site previously occupied by the County Gaol, the gaol bell being used as the school bell until 1969. The admission of girls to the school since 1902 and pupils from Knighton since 1921, together with the increasing recognition on the part of both government and the public of the value of secondary education, has led to a steady increase in the number of pupils during the present century - rising to today's total of approximately 500.
In the meantime, at Knighton, another school had started its life in 1939, when buildings were constructed to house a Central School intended to augment opportunities for secondary education in eastern Radnorshire. The outbreak of war led to the shelving of the scheme and for the duration of the war the buildings housed ammunitions works. With the coming of peace in 1945 work began to convert buildings to serve their original purpose and in 1947 Knighton Secondary Modern School received its first pupils. In 1970 the two schools were very successfully amalgamated into the present mixed 11-18 County School.
John Beddoes School is thus not a 'new' school, but one which is dedicated to carry on the spirit and traditions which it has inherited from its predecessors, the original Elizabethan John Beddoes School, Presteigne Grammar School and Knighton Secondary School, re-shaping and augmenting them in accordance with the needs and requirements of contemporary society.
Today the school is constantly improving with new building work to the front of the school and disabled access throughout. Refurbishment will take place in 2009 to the school hall.
