1617 – 'Contrey Schoolehouse' A safe country retreat from the plague

In 1617, building work commenced on a house at Grinshill, seven miles away from Shrewsbury, which was to be used as a retreat during times of plague and other epidemics, as enshrined in Thomas Ashton’s Ordinances of 1578.

The house was finished in 1623 and was used as a retreat for the School in 1631-32 during a major outbreak of plague and again in 1650. Judging by entries in the school accounts, the house was let to tenants at all other times.

The building was known simply as the 'Contrey Schoolehouse' until 1872, when the trustees of the School sold the property to a Dr Flinn. It then became 'The Grange' and later ' Stone Grange' and is still lived in today.

From at least 1793 the building was in use as a Grinshill parochial school, to which Shrewsbury School contributed £3 a year from 1809.