this was the building that started it all off for me, and I finally bothered to have a look round it earlier this year

Some info on it pinched from a local news site

"TODAY the former Wintringham Higher Grade School or Grimsby Municipal College in Eleanor Street is in a very sorry state with 50 per cent already demolished.

"But when this prestigious academy opened on Thursday, October 24, 1895, it was the local School Board's flagship institution, designed by eminent local architect Mr Herbert Scaping.

"The official opening was in the morning with speeches by George Doughty MP, the Mayor and other local 'worthies'. There was a chairman's reception at the Town Hall in the afternoon.

"According to the Grimsby News there was a grand evening conversazione starting at 9pm in the main hall, which was essentially a teachers' night with representatives from schools all over Grimsby attending an evening of dancing, entertainment and refreshments, that went on to the "early hours of the morning".

"The new school had a playfield, swimming baths, laboratory and a lecture theatre vividly shown in the Grimsby News drawings.

"The new college that opened to its first pupils at 9am on Monday, November 4, 1895, was to quote the advertisements of the time, designed to give 'A sound modern education affording preparation for universities, professional and commercial life'.

"The college had a staff of 30 university graduates and specialists supervised by the principal, Mr Ernest J Stream MA.

"There was also a Kindergarten for junior pupils under eight years of age. Today, a similar education system appears to have been rejected by the Local Education Authority and pupils' parents as unworkable for the local Whitgift School.

"But all this modern education came at a price; 31 shillings per term for children over 12 years with a generous discount for local rate payers if they had from one to four children attending the college.

"Every year 75 scholarships to the value of £700 were offered to competing scholars.

"By the time I started at the school in 1962 it was the Grimsby Technical Secondary Modern School or the 'Tech' as it was known.

"The pungent chlorinated swimming baths and the upstairs laboratory, the domain of Mr Charlton, were virtually unchanged from the 1895 drawings.

"The playing fields were some distance away at Clee Fields where an old wooden pavilion with flaking paintwork served as a very basic changing room smelling of damp that doubled as an untidy storeroom.

"Even in the 1960s school uniform was compulsory and rigorously enforced by the staff. Peaked caps for boys and berets for girls had to be worn to and from school with many being thrown over the high wall of the adjacent Synagogue.

"The girls usually pinned their berets on top of the latest beehive hairdos. Ties and blazers were worn by both girls and boys.

"During the summer months ties were abandoned and the girls permitted to wear an approved summer dress.

"The school, as the name suggested, specialised in technical subjects such as engineering and woodwork for boys with Mr Briscoe, Mr Draper, Mr Quarmby and Mr Mackenzie, and commercial subjects such as shorthand and typing and accountancy with Mr Higson for the girls.

"The school pupils were divided among four main Houses, governed by appointed Housemasters, with each pupil sporting a badge of their house colour; Boston (blue), Housemaster Mr J Charlton, Gainsborough (green) Housemaster Mr E Crowther, Lincoln (red) Housemaster Mr J Sleigh and finally Stamford (yellow) with Housemaster and music virtuoso Mr Leo Solomon.

"There was an annual school magazine named Skalden that featured pupils' reports on speech day, sports and music. There were also numerous poems and stories.

"The magazine had advertisements from many local businesses, such as school uniform providers – Greenbergs, Lawson & Stockdale and Southcotts.

"Music store Gough & Davy in Victoria Street had an advert that boasted, 'The largest selection of records in the County'.

"After the Technical School finally closed, the building became Grimsby Art College. It was then envisaged that the building would be converted to apartments, but unfortunately the school's main hall was demolished and the remainder of the building allowed to fall into disrepair.

"Today, just over a century later, it has gone from an educational edifice to an empty eyesore."


This building is now on this years Victorian societys most at risk list,
http://www.victoriansociety.org.uk/n...-lincolnshire/

heres a few pics

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thanks