The National Trust cares for a small number of buildings designed specifically for educational, scientific or study purposes.

The private libraries and studies which occur in most houses were also very much places of learning. In many houses a schoolroom was designated for private education.

The Blewcoat School in London, now a National Trust shop, is a representative example of a tradition of charitable educational establishments, built to provide education for poor boys. Blewcoat boys wore a distinctive uniform of a long blue coat, breeches and yellow stockings.

At the Shugborough Estate in Staffordshire, the stable block houses a Victorian schoolroom, evidence of the local infrastructure that supported the great country estates of the past.

The 15th-century Buckingham Chantry Chapel in Buckinghamshire was later used as a school.

The Victorian service wing at Sudbury Hall in Derbyshire houses the National Trust Museum of Childhood. The museum's display includes a Victorian classroom.

Education for child workers

The Apprentice House at Quarry Bank Mill & Styal Estate in Cheshire recreates the 1830s’ atmosphere of the lives of the pauper child workers. It was the living quarters of up to 100 young boys and girls from the local parish being trained to work in the cotton mill. The building was divided into several distinct sections including the schoolroom, and a punishment room.

The apprentices’ lives were harsh and monotonous. They typically worked for 12-13 hours a day, with little or no time for recreation. According to an 1806 account of the accommodation in the Apprentice House, ‘our beds were good. We slept two to a bed and had clean sheets once a month.’

The Workhouse at Southwell is the best surviving workhouse in existence, and includes a schoolroom. Education was provided in workhouses decades before coming available to all, with teachers undergoing inspection.

Other National Trust places where you can see educational architecture:

The Church House in Devon. There is a school in Sherborne village on the Sherborne Estate in Gloucestershire.