The first recorded school in Ringwood was founded in 1577 by Richard Lyne, Lord of the Manor of Leybrook who owned land in Burley and Ringwood. With the consent of the Vicar of Ringwood, a stone saxon built hut standing in the churchyard was converted into a school building and a teacher, Mr Richard Watrington, was appointed.  

Ringwood Free School 1577

.And whereas I the said  Richard Lynes, with the assent and consent  of Mr Henry Bissell (late) vycar of the said parrishe  church of Ringwoode and the churche wardens and the parishioners of the same have invested (1577) and prepared one olde stone house standing in the churchyard of the said church, to make a schoole howse for the schollers to be taught in…………there to instructe and teache the schollers of the saide schoole my wel beloved in Christ, Richard Watrington.

The teacher was granted a salary of £13 -8-6d per annum.

The original of this will is held in the Hampshire Record Office, Winchester and runs to many pages of old English script.

The school was free to the children of residents of Ringwood, a charge being made on the Leybrook Estate for expenses. The school suffered good and bad times over the centuries.   Some pupils went on to fame.   John Willis (1652 – 1725), was later to become an Attorney  and patron of the school.   By a strange quirk of fate his house “Church Hatch" in Market Square was later to become the new Ringwood Grammar School nearly two hundred years later.    

Bishop Stillingfleet

Records are sketchy but do record a headmaster by the name of Baulch in 1648 and a Mr Rice in 1744, with the Rev Harry Davis in 1800.

In 1822 the building partly collapsed but was repaired and under Headmaster Joseph Early carried on from 1824 to 1830 when the school finally closed.

The Lands and Manors of the Lynes were sold to the Earl of Malmsbury in 1830 and the church used the funds to build the Ringwood National School which opened in 1848.

Rupert Kepple in his book  “The Elizabethan Free School”  (published by Pinhorns of Shalfleet Manor, Isle of Wight,)  gives a good history and ends with a description of the demolishing of the “old and unsightly” schoolhouse in January 1850- “and today there is not a trace of it above ground.

Church Hatch, Market Square, Ringwood

1919, Headmaster Rev Marsh Edwards and pupils

A Mr E .Harvey was in charge for two years.  

Mr Stanley H.Vizard took over in 1926 and  from then and through the 30s the school averaged 29 pupils. 

A photograph of 1939 shows numbers had risen to 39.

Mr Stanley H Vizard

Under his headmastership the numbers of pupils increased dramatically at the outbreak of the Second World War.  Parents moved their children out of dangerous areas to board them in the relative safety of Ringwood

1939, Headmaster Vizard, Pupils and Spot the Dog

Mr Laurence Ling purchased the school upon Mr Vizard’s retirement in 1944.

He soon found the seventeenth century building inadequate for the numbers of pupils attending.  A photograph taken during the last year at Ringwood shows 92 boys, 1 girl and 7 staff.

The search for larger premises brought the school away from Ringwood,  and in 1946 it re-located to West Hill Road, Bournemouth where it would continue until closure 1976.