Book name: The Manor House School
Author: Angela Brazil
Publisher: Blackie & Son
Format: Print, ebook
Genre: Vintage children’s books, school stories
Publication Date: 1925
Star Rating: 5/5
Some of Angela Brazil’s school stories are set in environments that feel more like a home than a school.
It was precisely that way with The Manor House School.
Winterburn Lodge is a boarding school in town. Its girls long for the country when summer term arrives.
All suggestions that the school move to the country are firmly rebuffed, until a problem with the drains leads the school to move temporarily to a manor house in Haversleigh in Somerset.
The girls are thrilled. The owner and her mother will be moving into temporary lodgings in the village, giving the school complete occupation of the manor house.
Soon after the school arrives in Haversleigh and settles in to the manor house, the girls meet Monica. She is the owner, having inherited it from her uncle. She’s also their own age! But she is poor and her mother is very ill.
Monica’s preoccupation soon impresses itself upon the girls of the Manor House School.
Cicely and Lindsay in particular can’t shake off the news that Monica’s inheritance was just the house, when everyone thought Sir Giles was very rich. What has happened to his fortune?
The two girls search the house for the missing money. They become very suspicious of the two servants who are still in the manor house. They become convinced that Sir Giles is still alive and being held prisoner in the attic.
Eventually, the girls succeed in their quest. This means that Monica’s mother will get the help she needs, and Monica and her mother will be able to remain at the manor house after all.
The feel of The Manor House School was more of a home than a boarding school. This was partly due to the circumstances that led the girls there, and partly because of the focus on Monica’s money.
I loved this story for its strong connection to history, its originality and for the personalities of Monica, Cicely and Lindsay.
Thank you for reading my review.
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If you’ve enjoyed this review, you might be interested reading in my review of Clover by Susan Coolidge.
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