Shustoke C of E Primary School History

The school was originally called and ‘English’ school and was situated at Church End. It was attached to six Almshouses and founded in 1699 by Thomas Huntbach who also paid for the building of the six Almshouses. He was Dugdale's nephew and lived at Shustoke Hall on Moat House Lane.

The school catered for all the pupils of Shustoke and Bentley along with a small number of children from Over Whitacre.

There is a slate on the outside of the Almshouses which has a poem inscribed (reputedly written by Thomas Huntbach) it reads:

This school-house which is built you see

To poore and Rich I make it free

For all that in the parish dwell

To teach their Youth how to live well

And Catakise (catchecise) them frequently

That they may now how truly thereby

When theyto Riper years do come

Their duty both to God and man

Sox Houses here annext unto

With Gardens there belonging to

I give unto the Poore for ever

Desirous this my Guift may never

At any time abusd should be

But that trustees will always See

And be unto the poore a freind

Forever unto the World's end

Pass here accompts this Chamber free

Expenses saved by I youl see

Praise not the giver but let him have

All praise that gave a heart that gave

SOLI DEO GLORIA 1699

Soli Deo Gloria means Glory to God Alone.

There was a second school (infants) in the middle of the present village funded by Randall Francis Tongue Croxall who lived at Shustoke House and paid for the restoration of Shustoke church in 1872-3 in his wife's memory. It closed its doors in the 1950’s.