Kinley Cottage is an attractive house faced with Malvern stone on Upper Welland Road (see map). It is not obvious from its current appearance that it was built as a school.

St Wulstan’s Catholic Church on Wells Road opened in 1862 and a small elementary school for the local Catholic children was built next to it. This needed replacing by the 1890s and so a new one was built on a site in Upper Welland Road given by Mr Charles Michael Berington of Little Malvern Court. The building costs were funded by voluntary subscriptions and the builder was Mr McCann of Malvern. The school opened in 1897 with Miss Lissie Craig as mistress. The school was intended for up to 50 children but average attendance was often lower. There was a large garden for the children, with separate male and female toilet blocks at the end of it.

Other schoolmistresses whose names have survived are Miss Helen McConn (1904), Miss Barlow (1905), Miss Floreen Pugh (1908), Eva Marion Breeze (1921) and Miss A Ryan (1928). During or just before Miss Pugh’s time, the number of places was reduced to 40, possibly to make space to provide living accommodation for the teacher.

The number of pupils continued to fall and the school closed in 1934. After this, local Catholic children either attended St Joseph’s Catholic School in Malvern or what is now Malvern Wells C.E. Primary School on Wells Road.

By 1939 the former school was occupied by the Woodman family and had acquired the name Kinley Cottage. The head of the household was Arthur Woodman, retired hotelkeeper, who had run the Portland Hotel in Church Street, Malvern, for many years. The other members of his household were his wife, Gertrude, who was blind, widow Alice Tilley, and the Woodmans’ adult daughter, Alice. She recorded her occupation as ‘unpaid domestic duties and care of aged parents’. Better known as Alys Woodman (1897-1987), she was also an artist of some note, who regularly had work displayed by the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists.

During World War II, Alys was a member of the local air raid patrol. She captured a German airman from a crashed bomber during the early hours of one morning in July 1942 when returning home from her ARP duties. Someone who knew her noted that she habitually dressed in dungarees and that might explain why the German airman thought initially that she was one of his crew and addressed her in German.

Alys Woodman was also responsible for the mural that used to be in the Worcestershire Beacon cafe depicting ‘a fair field full of folk’, part of the vision of Piers Plowman.

By 1949 William Johnson, a timber merchant, and his wife, Beryl, were living at Kinley. William added the top floor to the cottage, improving the bedroom accommodation. He also fitted several doors that had once belonged to RMS Mauretania, having bought them at the auction of the ship’s furnishings and fittings in 1935. These are still in place.

The cottage has had a number of owners since then.

With thanks to Gwyneth Gill, Roy and Barbara McAdam, Frank Morgan.