We are al ways interested to hear from "Old Boys," staff and the families associated with the Shaftesbury Society Homes & Schools that were in our Village from 1867 - 1959

The Heritage Team can be contacted through our email :   heritage@bisleyvillagehall.org

In 1955 a committee, representing all the village organisations, was formed to raise funds to build a new village hall.
They started with just £170. Money was to be raised by the residents at fairs, bazaars, dances, jumble sales, carol singing etc.
By 1959 the total had reached £2,000.

It was decided that the funds that had been raised by the village, were to be used to purchase the chapel in 1961 and pay for the conversion. The total cost was £6,100. The village residents had raised £3,500 over 7 yrs.

In 1961 the Chapel of the Bisley Boys School (previously the Farm School & The Shaftesbury School) was transferred from the Shaftesbury Homes and Arethusa Training Ship for the sum of £500.

In 1962 the hall was opened as Bisley Village Hall and charitable status was conferred on the Hall.

(In 2001, 40 yrs later the Hall had to be insured for £600,000 and we are very grateful to the Shaftesbury Homes & Arethusa Training Ship for their transfer of the Chapel to Bisley Village Hall).

In 1982 the Jubilee Hall was added.

The Memorial Windows

Over the years we have been contacted by people tracing their family histories.

There is a census link to 1861, 1871 & 1891  with  all the boys are named who were at the two Shaftesbury Schools in Bisley  at these times

 https://surreylocalhistory.org.uk/bisley/index.htm

We do not have records of all the boys that were at the Farm School & Shaftesbury Schools, but we do have the names of the boys who gave their lives in WW1 and WW2. (See Below)  Through research at the London Metropolitan Archives we now have many lists of names of boys  and staff  (both teaching and estate staff) who were at the schools from 1867 to 1920.

The two schools were amalgamated as Bisley Boys'  School after WW1. We are compiling a database of boys  and staff who were Bisley Boys ' School  from 1920 to 1959 to help us with enquiries we often have from families .  We have copies of "The Bisleyan" which was the school magazine  from 1930's to 1958  excluding the years of WW2 when copies were not printed .

WW1 & WW2 memorials
The first list is of the names of the Old Boys of the Farm School and Shaftesbury School in Bisley who died in WW1 from the Shaftesbury Society LOG BOOKS  and the second from the memorial tablets (Appendix G "A Hundred Years Behind The Times" by Tim Price) WW1 & WW2

The Memorial Tablets  were on the outside of the Sanctuary wall at the Boys' School Chapel. They were removed when the school was closed and sold in 1959/1961.