Gastrell, Notitia Cestrienses, I, 153, notes: 'Here is a Free School, the master of wch. receives 5l. 6s p[er] an[num], the Rent of 20 Acres of land given by the Inhab[itants] upon the enclosing of a Common. No School house, but [the] Master teaches in the Belfry. Put in by Trustees; [the] Rect[or] of Bebington for [the] time being, one'. D. Robson, Some Aspects of Education in Cheshire in the Eighteenth Century, Chetham Soc., vol. 13, 3rd. ser. (1966), 169, 39, 128 gives foundation date as 1656 by the inhabitants upon the enclosure of the common.