The Old School in Ivinghoe is now a superb community run cafe (named ‘Curiousitea Rooms’ – coffees are also available). Ivinghoe Village set up a campaign to save the building and now run it as a community asset, with responsibility transferred from Bucks CC (County Council, not another cycling club.. der)
It is highly recommended.
Extensive googling for over five minutes found that the school building, now home to the Curiousitea Rooms (you can like their Face on the Book) dates from 1856. The building has a sign with a crown and a B motif, which probably denotes the Earl Brownlow:
These days, Ivinghoe is a lovely village within the Chiltern’s Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and during the nineteenth century the Earl Brownlow and his wife were benefactors in that the Countess Allford purpose built and bequeathed in perpetuity in 1856 the building of the Village School, this enticing the local village children from the ‘Straw Plait’ schools wherein they contributed plaited straw to the Hat Industry in Luton. The new village school became a ‘National School’, and formed part of the overall educational provision of Buckinghamshire County through to the late 1960’s. The County have managed the building since 1906, introducing an Environmental Study Centre as the ‘School’ moved to a new combined building with a neighbouring village, and this Environmental Study Centre flourished, combining with the local converted Brewery House Youth Hostel to open the eyes of many urban school children to the rural delights of the Chiltern Hills, Forests, Reservoir Bird Sanctuaries, Canal, Museums, Historical Houses and Mills.
