tells us that "The Grammar School is an old building in Culver Street containing a large school room, and a house for the master's residence, with a garden of 20 rods, and some outbuildings." The perambulation plan of 1794 bears out this description.
In addition to this bare reference, however, we may discover a little from the School accounts. In 1723, for instance, there was "a cellar dug, and a new floor laid over the East part of the School (? hall) even with the floor over the West part." In 1642-3 the Corporation reimbursed Dugard, then master, for building "a fire-room, and a study over it adjoyning to the school" (Morant, iii, 15, 16). It was Dugard who instituted the School's "log-book," known as Liber Scholae Colcestriensis, in which entries continued to be made for two centuries. The following accounts are taken from it.
In 1639 £2 12s. 8d. was paid for "gravelling of ye Streete and raileing in before ye schoole," and in this same year occurs this entry: " Item 19,000 of brick." I believe that these bricks were used to build the walls round the garden ; one of these, the east wall, may now [1947] be seen to the side of the car park in Culver Street, where the brickwork appears to be of seventeenth-century date. Of the interior a little may be gained from these entries from the same source (1638).
| Imprimis planchering [i.e. flooring] ye Hall | 2 | 5 | 0 | ||
| Itm | planchering (or covering three chambers with half-inch deales) | 3 | 3 | 7 | |
| Itm | a table for ye Schoole | 0 | 16 | 0 | |
| Itm | a Register book to write ye Schollers names in when they are admitted | 0 | 6 | 0 | |
| [This was doubtless the Liber Scholae Colcestriensis.] | |||||
| Itm | Carpenters work about ye Schoole, vis. mending ye declaiming pew and setting up benches, ec. | 0 | 17 | 0 | |
| Itm | a Common Bible for ye Schoole | 13s/4d. | |||
| and a desk to lay it in | 3s/4d. | 0 | 16 | 0 | |
| Itm | paid to Mrs Kemp for a long settle in the Hall, two portalls in the Hall and a portall [i.e. door-frame] in the chamber over ye Hall | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
Today the ground floor has been radically changed, and a new front inserted, while the garden is occupied by workshops. The old building is nevertheless recognisable, and much should be made of it by Colcestrians. Three hundred years is sterling service, and Westons represents in constancy the character of the School itself during that time—there were fewer changes seen between 1584 and 1853 by far than between that date and the present day.
In 1584, then, rather than 1539, really began the second chapter of the School's history. The provisions decreed by the Assembly were affirmed in May, 1585, when a formal Foundation Deed was drawn up. The "Free Grammar School" was established in Westons, with Edward Watson, M.A., as master. Sixteen free scholars were to be instructed, and chantry property to the annual value of 20 marks was allotted " to and for the maintenance of the said Free-school, and the School-master thereof for the time
