Harton Village School

This building was added to the South Tyneside local list in 2023. The local list description reads:
'The Harton Village school building is in the grounds of St Peter’s Church Harton (a nationally listed building) and is accessed through Moor Lane. The first school in Harton Village was built in 1846. The Reverend Phillpott’s (first vicar of St Peter’s church) journal details the building of the second school. It was designed by the well-known architects T. A. Page and Sons 67 King Street. It was built in 1875 for the sum of £500 donated by Joseph Mason Moore the Town Clerk. His daughter Sarah Jane Moore (AKA Poppy) laid the foundation stone on June 1st, 1875.
Children attended from the whole of Harton Township. In 1901 there were three teachers and forty-six children at the school but, with the opening of the Mortimer Road Schools under the Board of Education, the numbers at the Village School reduced.
The plan from 1905 showing proposed addition of indoor toilets. Interestingly the dry toilet building survives though all internal signs of its original use have vanished, and it is used as sheds for storage by the church and the scouts.
As a result of the incorporation of Harton Township into the Borough of South Shields in 1921 the school came under the authority of the South Shields Education Authority, which closed it as a day school on 8th January 1932. The pupils, headteacher and two assistant teachers were transferred to Cleadon Park, Mortimer or Stanhope Schools. The Vicar and churchwardens were then authorised to use the premises as a Sunday School or for evening classes, for educational lectures and for physical instruction.
In 1937 it was agreed that the school could be used for church purposes and thus the school came to be used as the Parish Hall. Extensive work was carried out at this time, comprising of a new floor, new toilet accommodation, roof repairs and seating. On February 26th, 1941, the hall was requisitioned by the army at a rental of £50 per annum until it was handed back in September 1944. Further refurbishments of the hall took place in 1967 and in August 2017. It is now called St Peter’s Church Hall. Harton Village School building has been an integral part of Harton Village’s social, religious and cultural life for nearly 150 years.”
Compiled from the book by Jean Stokes “Harton Village 1900” by Harton Village Press first published August 2017.'