Dame School, Chicklade

There is relatively little surviving information regarding schools in Chicklade: no school log books and little in the way of other documentation on the schools survived to the twenty-first century, meaning that the history of education in the parish is necessarily brief.

There were no free or charity schools in Chicklade in the late eighteenth century, however by 1818 the parish had a dame school with space for 10 children and by 1833 there were six boys and one girl at the school. This school may have remained open for some time between 1833 and 1848 when a new small school building was constructed in the village. The school was to the south of the London to Exeter road, now the A303, and a school house was added in 1867. By 1859 the school had between fifteen and thirty pupils, some of whom travelled from Pertwood and Boyton, who were taught by a mistress paid for by the rector. The building was apparently unfit for purpose by 1872 and alterations were made in 1877, however attendance at the school fell into the 1880s, possibly affected by the fact that the older children attended Hindon School, and in 1885 the average attendance was only 12 pupils. Possibly as a result of this the school was closed at some point between 1885 and 1892.