The Grammar House
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| THE GRAMMAR HOUSE was completed in 1671 and paid for by Mary Cartwright. She left £700 to found a grammar school, a goodly sum then; worth about £42,000 in today’s money. Very detailed accounts for the building of the school including the names of all the craftsmen involved in its building and also from whence they came are still extant.
It was built to a very high specification, witness the elegantly carved diamond shaped label stops on either side of the doors, and the door and window surrounds all speak of high quality workmanship; it was a money-no-object job. See also the sundial. The Grammar School closed in 1893 being replaced by a Victorian National School built behind the Cartwright Arms. Gen Sir Fairfax Cartwright and the Countess Donna Maria, his Italian born wife, took to living at the Grammar School House until he died in 1928; they kept the big house and staff on as a venue for entertaining their friends. |
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| Note: During the C17th the local gentry were founding grammar schools left right and centre Adderbury in 1689 (endowed by the Rev. Christopher Rawlins). Deddington had one as early as 1548. Sybil Stevens remembers: |
| Walk back passing THE ROW Of COTTAGES 1eading to Cartwright Arms |