St Anne’s School, Abbots Bromley

This boarding school for girls was built in 1874 by the architects Richard Carpenter and Benjamin Ingelow, and was part of the Woodard Group of Anglican schools. In the 1901 census, Isaac Taylor’s future wife, Edith Amy Isabelle Benett Wollaston, was shown living there as an assistant mistress teaching music. At her wedding in 1903 at the Minster church Warminster, she was given away by the school provost, Arthur Talbot, and one of her attendants was the headteacher, Marcia Alice Rice. It may have been that these friendships led to Taylor being appointed the school’s official architect, or he may have met Edith whilst already working at the school. Whatever the explanation, he went on to oversee a substantial enlargement to the school, refurbishing old buildings and erecting new ones. The new buildings included a school infirmary, cloisters to the existing chapel, and boarding accommodation. Through his connections at St Anne’s, he also received commissions for two other local schools in the same group – Ellesmere College and Denstone College. [Richard Fletcher]