The Crypt School

Ogólne informacje

In 1528 John Cooke, mercer and four times Mayor of the City of Gloucester, made a will in which he directed his wife to “stablish and ordeyn a continuall frescole of gramer for the erudicion of children and scolers” by a “scole maister to kepe scole and teche gramer freely”. The following year, Dame Joan Cooke drew up a tripartite deed between the Mayor and Burgesses of Gloucester and the Bailiffs and Citizens of Worcester as to the endowments for the benefit of the school. This was the era of the founding of many of the grammar schools which for centuries were to determine the pattern of education in this country. The New Learning of the Renaissance, the intellectual and spiritual challenges of the Reformation, the growing wealth of a new merchant class aware of the need for more schools and perhaps also thinking of building memorials to their own benevolence and generosity, were some of the influences that contributed to the new foundations. The close connection between the Church and education were preserved in the siting of the original “scole house” in Southgate Street, Gloucester which still stands today: it was built on land that was (until 1529) part of the burial ground of the Church of St Mary de Crypt. This church, one of the few medieval city centre churches still in use in Gloucester, was for many years known as the church of The Blessed Mary of Chiste, and the school, immediately adjoining the church, was called the “Crist” or “Christ” School. By the middle...