Difference between revisions of "Beast Banks National School"

Revision as of 19:28, 27 June 2024

Above the junction of Beast Banks and Low Fellside with Allhallows Lane on an area of land previously probably associated with the original All Hallows' Chapel which was somewhere near here according to John Speed's map of 1612. The area was also described as Nether Graveship (associated with the church but separated from other church lands).

As well as endowing the Whitehaven Marine School and a soup kitchen there in 1817 Matthew Piper also endowed Beast Banks (boys) National elementary school at Kendal (later Central School) with £2,000 and another at Lancaster - also both early National Schools. The school was designed by Webster. Matthew Piper's portrait hung over the master’s desk and the endowment in 1906 consisted of £2,159 (in five per cent annuities). The Boys' National School was built by subscription in 1818. The mayor and aldermen are the trustees, and Mr. Richard Roberts is the master of this large seminary, where upwards of 200 boys receive gratuitous instruction. Upwards of 200 females are educated by subscription, in the girls' school, which contains a separate room for the girls of the Blue Coal School. The mayor and aldermen are the trustees and Mr. Richard Roberts was the master.

The Kendal National School was established by a deed dated 21st November 1817, on a one acre site called Lower Spout Close in Beastbanks (SD 513 925). The foundation stone was laid on 16th December 1817 and the school opened two years later on the 11th August 1819. In 1974 it became an annex for Vicarage Park junior school (Cantral School) after which, in 1985, it was converted into a housing complex.

Piper requested that his remains be buried under the centre of the floor of the National School in Kendal. As the school was being built, Piper’s ashes were interred in a vault there.