Sawston was the first Village College to be built in accordance with Henry Morris’s imaginative plan for rural education. Morris, Education Secretary for Cambridgeshire, envisaged the village college as creating ‘a new institution for the English countryside, one which would take all the various vital but isolated activities in village life - the school, the village hall and reading room, the evening classes and bring them together in to relation.’

Front elevation of Sawston Village College by H.H. Dunn, County Architect, November 1928

Each college was intended to serve a group of neighbouring villages and provide schooling for children aged 11-15 whilst also hosting a range of evening and weekend classes and activities for students of all ages.

The scheme for Sawston was finally approved, after much discussion and debate, in 1927. The college was to serve 9 villages in addition to Sawston; Pampisford, Great and Little Shelford, Stapleford, Babraham, Whittlesford, Duxford, Ickleton and Hinxton. The total cost of the buildings was £15,300.

Henry Morris, the Prince of Wales and Arthur Filsell, first warden at the opening ceremony in October 1930.

Timetable of activities, 1943. Note the meetings of the Home guard, the Evacuees Club and Aircraft Recognition classes alongside the usual events.

Source:

Plan of the college from a series of originating in Cambridgeshire County Council's Architecture Department [Bundle E32], County Record Office, Cambridge.