The half acre that he thus obtained was ordered to be enclosed and James Carr agrees that he will keep or cause to be kept there "one gramer scole" building it "at hys awne propyr charges and costes."
The _Gentleman's Magazine_ in 1786 contains a letter from a correspondent describing the school that Carr built. It was low, small and irregular and consisted of two stages, whereof at that period the upper one was used for writing, etc., that is to say for elementary education, probably reading, writing and arithmetic; the lower stage on the other hand was used for advanced teaching. This would include the elaborate classical curriculum common to almost every school and to which we shall return later. On the North side there was a small projecting building, which before 1786 had contained a tolerable collection of books but at that time they had been dispersed. The date of the completion of the building is fixed by an inscription on a stone which was placed almost above one of the doors and is still preserved in the modern Big School.
Alma dei mater, defende malis Jacobum Car: Presbiteris, quoque clericulis domus hec fit in anno Mil' quin' cen' duoden'. Jesu nostri miserere: Senes cum junioribus laudent nomen Domini.
Kindly Mother of God, defend James Car from ill. For priests and young clerks this house is made in 1512. Jesus, have mercy upon us. Old men and children praise the name of the Lord.
The inscription is an ingenious but not altogether happy example of Carr's ability as a writer of Latin Hexameters.
Above this stone slab was an ornamented niche, which at one time contained an image but of which no knowledge can be obtained. It may have held a statue of the Virgin and Child and be the origin of the school seal, as a writer in the _Giggleswick Chronicle_, March 1907, suggests, but the chantry was not dedicated to the Virgin, it was the "Chaunterie of the Rode" and as such we should expect to find a crucifix with the Virgin standing by it.
There is only one other record of the School during the next thirty years but it is a very important one, for it shows that the School was not restricted to the village but encouraged boarders from distant villages and towns. About the year 1516 William Malhame writes to his brother John: