School's out for good

MariaInWales's recent series of blips on the history of education in Llangollen in North Wales inspired me to take another look at this old school in Fishguard. I haven't found much information and it's actually quite hard to get a decent view of the building which is tucked away behind some terraced housing which may be of later date. The Victorian-Gothic style structure in the background here is the 1886 National School, funded by Lady Augusta Hamilton in memory of her late husband Sir James (local gentry with an interest in education) according to the plaque above the door. It is in fact an addition grafted on to an earlier school of 1857, of which the cream coloured house on the left in this shot was the schoolmaster's accommodation.
(My own primary school in another part of Wales also incorporated the teacher's home and the first pupils to arrive in the morning had to go round and ask for the key to open up the building. Mr Davies would come to the door, mouth full of toast, to hand it over and to check that our request was correctly phrased in Welsh.)

This old school building has been in the process of conversion for years hence the jumble around the entrance. Even though the door usually stands open I've never actually found anyone here to ask if I could look inside and more particularly see the original school behind. I think I should try harder but there was no one around again today. I haven't discovered much about about the history of the school, or even when it closed but there does exist a charming photograph of the class of 1909, around 50 pupils with two woman teachers.
(I bet they'd have loved to hop on that Harley Davidson and get right away from Reading, Writing and Arithmetic with the Leader of the Pack)

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