No Mans Land School, Redlynch

In 1867 a small National School was built on Hamptworth Common for the children of Hamptworth and Nomansland. It was designed by Sir Gilbert Scott and funded by George Morrison of Hampton Lodge. It could accommodate 40 children but at times the attendance was over 50. In the early days there was much rough horseplay from the older boys, both inside and outside the school, with the schoolmaster often the victim. The school was first known as Hamptworth National School but the village of Nomansland grew out to enclose it and from the late 1870s it seems to have been known as Nomansland School.

The school logbooks begin in 1875 and present an interesting picture of life in a school, on the edge of the New Forest, in a recently settled area. There are several differences to life in Wiltshire schools in other areas, including more frequent and longer absences of children, and children kept away from school for activities connected with the Forest. The school itself was 24 feet long, 14 feet 6 inches wide and 13 feet 6 inches high. It was heated by a coal-fired stone and besides a day school there was an evening school for older children who were working during the day. There was no Anglican church in either Nomansland or Hamptworth so the school was licensed for Sunday and weekday evening services. There were frequent visits by the vicar and his wife, who both taught scripture in the school, and the school managers. Despite this most of the children attended the Wesleyan Sunday School although gradually some of them changed denominations with the lure of church treats and Sunday School prizes.

Much of Victorian teaching revolved around reading writing and arithmetic but there were plenty of other subjects taught including geography, both English and the world, history, singing, needlework and knitting. The basic subjects also covered grammar, dictation, writing letters to friends, recitation and leaning the catechism. In the 1890s drawing was introduced and the infants learned plaiting. Songs learned including ‘Tap, tap, tap goes the cobbler on his cart’ and ‘All day long in the cornfields so weary’ – both subjects that the children would have experienced. In 1878 a new version of Hymns Ancient and Modern was presented by the Rev. Gay and the children practiced singing hymns for evening services in the school. Object lessons, where the children studied features of a single object, do not seem to have been taught until the 1890s when they included such topics as the outside and inside of a house, a grocers’ shop, a bottle, a farm yard and a straw hat. Also in the 1890s children learned carols for Christmas and made simple decorations.

The annual holidays varied quite a lot from year to year but generally were; 10 days to 2 weeks at Christmas, although in the 1870s the schoolmistress took the children to a church to a church service on Christmas day; 2 weeks at Easter from 1870; and from 1876, four weeks Harvest Holiday in August. There was also a Whitsun holiday of one week at the end of May from 1880. The school seems to have had more full and half day holidays than most. Many of these were involved with church, chapel or Sunday School, such as the Wesleyan Sunday School tea, Sunday School Treats (on successive days by different vicars), and chapel tea meetings. The school also had its own feast or school treat while sometimes a holiday was granted on occasions such as the Plaitford school treat when a basket of cakes was sent to Nomansland from that village. Other holidays were for special occasions such as for Ascension Day, a Bank Holiday, the Temperance fete and, on 1st June 1887, for Queen Victoria’s Jubilee Feast at Melchet Court. In February 1881 the school closed early at 3.30pm as the vicar was giving a magic lantern show in the evening. While in July 1887 the school was closed while it was cleaned and whitewashed, and in the following year an extra week was added to the summer holiday for the school to be painted and whitewashed.

Serious illnesses were more frequent than today and there were local epidemics. Scarlet fever caused the closure of the school in 1876 for 2 weeks and for a month in November 1880 when 2 children died. Several children had scarletina in 1878 and whooping cough was common for several years. The school was closed for 2 weeks because of an outbreak of measles in May/June 1883 and only 10 out of 40 children were well enough to attend when the school re-opened. Measles was fairly common while influenza also struck the area in March 1890 and January 1892. In the latter month the school had to close for 2 weeks because the schoolmistress was ill and there was no replacement.

At a time when parents had to pay 1d (about 0.4p) a week for their child’s schooling, a boy or girl could be kept at home for weeks, or months, at a time, as when one girl had to look after her grandmother for 5 weeks. Some absences were connected with gathering natural products specific to the forested area. Most years the children went ‘ferning’ in October and November, presumably gathering fern to act as bedding for animals, or maybe their own bed sacks. After windy weather and gales many children would be ‘wooding’, gathering fallen branches and sticks for the home fire. Also in October and November children were frequently off school for gathering acorns after high winds. In 1884 nearly the whole school were kept at home for this purpose on 27th and 28th October after strong winds on the 26th. Other seasonal activities included haymaking in June, gleaning (picking up ears of corn after harvest) in September and planting potatoes in their gardens. In May 1876 many children were said to be at work in the fields while in October 1877 children were off school working out of doors with their parents because of the fine weather. Other reasons for being off school included the older boys attending meets of hounds, being kept at home to look after very young children while their parents worked, and the funeral of one of the infants. In November 1888 the elder children were off school to gather leaves, possible for use as compost or fertiliser for the garden.

Bad weather was another reason why children did not come to school. Wet weather reduced attendances (only 14 out of 40 in July 1877) while cold often kept the infants at home. Heavy snowfalls could cut attendance and some days the school was closed when the snow was particularly deep as it was on 1st March 1886.

In general average school attendance was fairly static in the 1870s and 1880s at between 40 and 50. Apart from the treats and feasts at the school there were other events that the children looked forward to. The school manager often brought in shirts to be sewn and made up or knitting to be done that was then exhibited at Bramshaw Show, where the girls often won prizes. In 1882 the vicar and his wife presented each of the Sunday School scholars with a book. In 1889 there was Christmas entertainment and a distribution of presents provided by 2 ladies of the area. In the 1880s the children had bank books and it would seen that a Penny Book operated at the school. Temperance meetings were held at the school in the evenings and by 1882 most of the children had taken the blue ribbon and joined the movement.

In general the H.M.I. reports for the 1880s are fairly good containing such phrases as ‘quietness in school during lesson’ (1880), ‘in good order being carefully and efficiently instructed’ (1886), and ‘a great credit to conscientious teaching’ (1887). In the late 1880s the infants were said to be backward learners. A long serving mistress had left in January 1888 and the school had several mistresses before a husband and wife team was appointed in September 1893. Up to then the children were taught by the mistress and a paid monitor (a girl in her early teens).

Although the children wrote on slates, they were also using copybooks and pens by the 1870s and fresh supplies of ink, pens, and penholders were brought in by the vicar at intervals. In December 1892 a very large consignment of equipment arrived at the school showing the materials that teachers and children used. This included copybooks, 5 quires of blotting paper, pens, penholders, ink, pencils, wax crayons, 24 drawing rubbers, 36 pencil rubbers, 60 exercise books, 5 quires of foolscap paper and 18 slates. To read they had 12 ‘Westminster Readers’ for each of 5 classes, Royal Atlas Readers, Century Historical Readers and a dozen copies of each of ‘Twelve Stones’ and ‘Twenty Stones’. There were also maps, a new blackboard and stand and many other learning aids. The children were said to be delighted with the stock of new books.

From 1878 the H.M.I. reports show increasing anxiety about the provision of a classroom for the infants. Plans for the new classroom were eventually drawn up in 1894 and the classroom built. The school could now accommodate 80 children. A schoolmaster’s house was also built and this later became part of the teaching accommodation. Children began school at 4 years old and, by 1893, had to stay until they were 11, this was raised to 12 in 1899. In 1894 there were 60 children in attendance on one day and the average attendance was 50-55 in the late 1890s. Around 1900 most of the Hamptworth children were attending school at Landford and by 1906 the average attendance had dropped to 41. The school is pictured here c. 1905. This continued to fall until it reached a low point of 28 in 1955. The building of more houses in the 1970s brought about a rise to 71 in 1975, mainly from Nomansland. By this time the school was an infants and junior school and children aged over 11 years went to Downton or Salisbury. In 2002 there were 52 pupils aged between 4 and 11 years at the school.