Monday 14 September 2020

Back at school in Well Hall



As I grow older I have come to admire the old board schools which were build in the decades after the 1870 Education Act.

They were solid brick or stone buildings, warm in winter and cool in summer.

The tall windows let in plenty of light but were not those expanses of glass which became popular in schools from the late 1940s.

These leaked heat, turned classrooms into boilers in the hot weather and when the metal frames began to deteriorate let in the rain and the wind.

Now I know they were built with outside lavatories and were heated by big open fires which was rotten if you were too close and equally miserable if you were far away.

That said these were places that looked the part, announcing that learning and opening the world to widening horizons was the name of the business.

So I like this picture which was taken by Chrissie and which holds such powerful memories for Jean Low that she also sent me some photographs.

And so I think it is time to invite people to tell me about the school and so share their memories of the school here in Well Hall.

You can either add a comment at the bottom of the story or seek at the Well Hall site on facebook and have your say there.

Pictures; from the collections of Chrissie and Jean.

5 comments:

  1. we used to play in the Gordon school in the holidays, our best spot was going down into the air raid shelter which was to the right of the main building on the corner of Earlshall.i wonder if its still there

    ReplyDelete
  2. I went to Deansfield but my Mum used to go to Adult Education classes at the Gordon. Things like dressmaking, jewellery making, woodwork

    ReplyDelete
  3. I went to Gordon School from 1969 till 1974, when we moved to Plumstead I look back with fondness at them school days in Eltham. I used to live opposite the school in Earshall Road.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I attended The Gordon School from 1966 when my family moved from Woolwich to Eltham that same year. I was 7yrs old and left to go to [Eltham Green] secondary school when I was 11 in 1970. Mr Stephenson was the Head teacher at the time, and Miss Fox was my teacher for daily registration. I remember then both clearly and I have many happy memories from then and look back fondly at my time spent there. How I wish I could meet up with some of the pupils that were my friends from that time.

    ReplyDelete