The Maiden School, 31 Rose Street

“The Maiden School” was founded by Martha Palmer, the wealthy spinster daughter of Richard and Mary Palmer of Luckley House, Chapel Green. By her will dated June 1713, she gave £400 to her trustees for the purchase of lands to provide an income of £15 a year to pay a school mistress and maintain a school. However it was not until June 1795, that the trustees, led by William Bremner, the minister at Wokingham and the Master at Lucas Hospital, had sufficient funds to purchase 31 Rose Street. This was then fitted out as a school house in which the mistress “of sober, virtuous and pious education and behaviour and bred up in the true faith and practices of the Church of England” was to reside and teach 12 poor girls “of honest parents”. Calling each other “sister”, these maidens were taught to read English, sew plain work, knit and spin worsted and learn the catechism, up to the age of 12 years.

A National School had already been founded in 1825 at 21 Rose Street where a new National Infants School was created by amalgamating it with the Maiden School in 1842. The building soon became inadequate, however, and within two years a new school room was built in the yard behind 31 Rose Street; the old school house became the residence of the school mistress and her assistants. By 1875 the National Schools were reformed as the Palmer Schools and relocated in new buildings. 

The Wokingham Walk