A strange old place

So this is Mark Kirby's Free School, hmm. First I've heard of it and indeed that's a brand spanking new sign. So a trip to the land of Google and Wikipedia informs me that Mr Kirby left an endowment in 1712 to support the village school near the churchyard and the school was to be renamed as you see. All well and good you might say except that to the right of the door is the sign you see below saying Richard Burton (who, if he'd read them, clearly did not heed the words of Matthew 6:3) gifted the land and the parishioners paid to build the house in 1729.  The wording "to the use of the poor of Cottingham for ever" implies a workhouse was built here a far cry from a school. So, anyway, you're thinking this is a house built in 1729, well not quite. Further delving into the arcane depths of Cottingham's history reveals that this building was modified when the church hall next to it was built in the 1850s. I'm finding what no doubt many have before that the past is a strange old place.

After all that you'll be wanting to see the building. Here it is with the church hall in the foreground. The building is now a coffee shop run by the church.