Chenies Village School

Chenies School has a history which it can be proud of, stretching back over 170 years.

 

These are some of the milestones in the development of the school and its buildings:

• 1831 The first school was held in Lord Wriothesley Russell’s kitchen in the Rectory from 1831 to 1846 1845 The Duke of Bedford instructed an Infant School to be built, this was what is now known as No 49 Chenies, it carries a Bedford crown and the date 1845.

 

• 1846 The oldest part of the present school building was built on the instruction of Anna Maria, the wife of the 7th Duke of Bedford and there is a plan of this building in the minute book when formal records began with the formation of the School Board in 1887. It was built to educate the children on the estate.

 

• 1879 A very special event celebrated in the school one Sunday afternoon was the presentation of a special frame made with wood from St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, with paintings of local scenes and the signatures of all the residents, to Lord Wriothesley Russell, on his Jubilee as pastor. Of the school it was written:“Chenies has been called a model village, and certainly this was a model school. In these days of education, when every parish is trying to hold its own in learning, and aiming to perfect its machinery, how apt we are to forget the efforts of those who began this good work!

 

• The undertaking at Chenies, like that in some other places, commenced in the Rectory kitchen, and went on increasing, till it not only culminated in that perfect little school-room, built by the individual sacrifice and personal effort of the noble rector, but was deemed of such high order as to find a place of commendation in the Blue Book, and to be held up as an example worthy of imitation by the whole country – according to the words of one of her Majesty’s inspectors, who was able to say, after examining Chenies school, “I consider it not only the best school in Buckinghamshire, but one of the best in England.”