Nantwich Grammar School

The original Nantwich Grammar School was first recorded in 1572 and occupied a schoolhouse in St Mary's churchyard.

The former schoolhouse and headmaster's house at 108 Welsh Row are listed as grade II; it has diapering, latticed windows and an octagonal bell tower.

[4] In 1611, Randle Kent, an early schoolmaster, had the existing building extended with the addition of a porch to the south face.

[2] According to the Reverend William Walford, a pupil in the 1780s, subjects taught included Latin, Greek, writing and arithmetic.

Walford described the tuition as "far from being of the highest order, as may be conceived, when one teacher had to instruct a hundred boys with no other assistance than that of an usher" and stated that pupils were frequently beaten.

It is first mentioned in a pamphlet of 1712, which stated that the school taught forty boys "who wear blue caps that their behaviour may be the better observed abroad".

[5] In general such charity schools taught reading, writing and arithmetic, and additionally prepared pupils for apprenticeships.

[6][7] The Nantwich Blue Cap School rented rooms from a house in Pepper Street, now demolished, and no specific schoolhouse was ever built.

[9] The town's population growth during the early 20th century rendered number 108 too small, and the combined school moved to a new, larger building at the end of Welsh Row in 1921.

[10] 108 Welsh Row is a large building of two storeys plus attics, in red brick with stone dressing and blue-brick decorative diapering under a slate roof.

In 1928, a few years after the move to the larger building, Nantwich and Acton Grammar School had expanded to 250 pupils.