Is situated near the southern portion of the town walls. The exterior exhibits a stuccoed pedimented front, surmounted by a plain cross. The interior was enlarged in 1826, and is elegant in decoration, and calculated to contain nearly 250 persons. * * * * * ROYAL FREE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. [Picture: Royal Free Grammar School] “Learning is an addition beyond Nobility of birth: honour of blood, Without the ornament of knowledge, is But a glorious ignorance.” SHIRLEY. This noble public institution for the education of youth was founded by KING EDWARD THE SIXTH, in 1561, on the supplication of Hugh Edwards and Richard Whitaker, and endowed with the greater portion of the revenues of the two dissolved colleges of Saint Mary and Saint Chad.—QUEEN ELIZABETH greatly augmented her brother’s donation in 1571, by adding the whole rectory of Chirbury, in this county, with additional tithes and estates in St. Mary’s parish, which now produce a considerable revenue. In 1798, the School having sunk into a state of comparative insignificance, a bill was passed for the better government and regulation of the Grammar School of King Edward the Sixth in this town, by which the management of the revenues, and the removal or discharge of the masters, is vested in the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry (as visitor) and thirteen trustees or governors. The appointment of head and second masters rests with the Fellows of St. John’s College, Cambridge. The school is open for the gratuitous instruction of the sons of freemen, and has maintained a character of high repute from its earliest formation. We learn that under the care of its first master, Thomas Ashton, there were 290 scholars, among whom were many of the sons of the gentry of the county and from North Wales, as well as from the first families in the kingdom. Camden, when he wrote, says, “it was the best filled in all England, being indebted for their flourishinge state to provision made by the excellent and worthie Thomas Ashton,” who was instrumental in procuring the grant of augmentation from Elizabeth, and contributed greatly to the school himself, and from whose exertions and judicious regulations it preserved its usefulness for many generations.