British Schools Museum

A wonderful small museum housed in the original Victorian and Edwardian schoolrooms of the Hitchin British Schools, just off Queen Street. The buildings preserve a complete sequence of 19th-century educational architecture — a Lancasterian schoolroom of 1837 with stepped tiered galleries, a Victorian classroom of the 1850s, and an Edwardian classroom — all open to walk through.

Guided tours led by retired teachers run on weekend afternoons; dressing-up boxes and pencil drills make it a hit with children. Modest admission. Open weekend afternoons only outside school holidays; check before going.

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A story
The 1837 Lancasterian schoolroom here is one of only two surviving anywhere in the world. Under the **monitorial system** invented by Joseph Lancaster, a single schoolmaster taught up to 300 boys at a time by drilling older pupils — *monitors* — who in turn drilled the younger ones. The galleried benches and pointing-stick chalkboards are exactly as they were.

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