Number 5, The Square, is the imposing building in the centre of Northam, next to St Margaret’s Church, and has a long and distinguished history dedicated to the care and welfare of the ordinary people of Northam.

As far back as 1741 it was the workhouse and, thirty years later, it could accommodate 80 inmates. The building became redundant when the new Union Workhouse was built during 1837-38 in Meddon Street, Bideford. Soon after that, the building found a new benefactor in Elizabeth Thorold (née Baugh), widow of Rev George Thorold, formerly rector of Hougham cum Marston in Lincolnshire.

Born October 1784 in Bristol, in 1851 Elizabeth was living at Clevelands, Northam, with two of her six children, a daughter-in-law and granddaughter. She bestowed the village school to Northam in 1852, died April 1856 and is buried in St Margaret’s Churchyard, Northam. An extract from an 1857 tribute states: 

‘For many years past she has clothed poor Church School children to the number of 50 and it was and is a truly pleasing sight to see them orderly and neatly proceed to Church on a Sunday, attended by a paid mistress and an assistant. This honoured lady bestowed many hundreds of pounds in restoring the old Workhouse at Northam in the substantial Gothic style, the interior fitted up with school seats and, added, was a comfortable residence for the teacher, to whom, with the assistant, a liberal salary was given. The annual clothing consisted of a new suit entire. The school is endowed forever. The old men and women of the parish were, at every Christmas, furnished with warm inner clothing; and her numerous other charities, in giving soup to the needy and deserving throughout the year, with a piece of beef to each poor family of about ten pounds at Christmas. Any parishioner sick, and particularly when recovering, was furnished with the best of food from her own table daily; and it is also to be regretted that the North Devon Infirmary has lost by her death a good subscriber. She gave a new window to St Margaret’s Church, Northam, and subscribed liberally during the last seven years towards its complete restoration’.

This old building continued housing the school that educated the young of Northam until 1968 when, due to its condition, a new school was deemed necessary.  The foundation stone was laid in July 1968 and St Margaret’s was opened in 1969.