Heritage Open Days (3)

Today was the last of the Heritage Open Days for this year, so after church (and a cup of coffee to deal with what my grandmother called 'the thirst after righteousness') Joe and I headed off to Barton.

Our first port of call was the old school in Queen Street.

Queen Street School was built in 1844 as a combined National and Infant School. The building is in the Tudor-Revival style, in red brick with stone dressings and slate roof. The original H-plan building contains three main schoolroom ranges and a former Master's House. The School has been disused since 1978.

The significance of the school

The School forms part of an impressive group of Victorian public buildings in the heart of Barton upon Humber's Conservation Area. The school, listed at Grade II*, is identified by English Heritage as `one of the most important schools surviving in England'; firstly, for its unique association with the leading educational pioneer, Samuel Wilderspin, and secondly, for its embodiment of educational innovation and its importance as a model design for other Victorian schools.

Samuel Wilderspin (1791-1866) was one of the founders of modern schooling. His work had a profound and far-reaching impact on educational practice and on the design and furnishing of school buildings and their grounds. He pioneered infant schools and invented the school playground, the teaching gallery, the classroom and new ways of teaching that still continue today. His approach - developing a child's feelings as well as their intellect, encouraging a spirit of enquiry, learning through experience, arts and nature, group activities and play - has proved to be remarkably far-sighted and long-lasting. Wilderspin's influence was international - as well as establishing infant schooling throughout the UK, the first infant schools in Europe, the Commonwealth and America were all modelled on his system, and his innovations had a transforming effect on education of children of all ages throughout the world.

The Queen Street School was built in 1844 as a combined Infant School and National School for older children, to designs by William Hey Dykes of Hull and Wakefield, assisted by Wilderspin. The original 1840s School is still remarkably complete.. It is a unique survival. Wilderspin had a world-wide impact, yet this is the only known survival anywhere of a Wilderspin school and playground. It is the only known example of a Model School which Wilderspin himself helped design and equip, and where he taught for several years, using it as a base for his promotion of enlightened education throughout Britain.

Besides being the only known example of a Wilderspin Model School, this is the only surviving school in England associated with a major early 19th century educational innovator. The School was used for an influential model design for a mixed infant and junior school published by the Government in 1845. Later 19th and early 20th century alterations to the building have been relatively modest, and retain the form and character of the original 1844 building to a remarkable extent. These later alterations and additions, in matching style and materials, trace the development of educational practice from the mid 19'th to the mid 20th century, a period which saw important and far reaching changes in childrens' schooling.

Together, these qualities make the Queen Street School building and its early playground area a site of considerable national and international importance. The present proposals have been guided by recognition of the School's exceptional significance, and its particular value as an embodiment of educational innovation and change during a critical historical period. The views of leading authorities on architectural history, the history of education, and school museums have been taken into account in the preparation of the project and the building scheme.

I am rather interested in this as it is proposed that the Victorian classroom at Normanby Hall will be closed and restored as a bedroom in the house tour, and that we will be teaching a range of schoolrooms here at Barton - the junior morning we now teach, a Wilderspin infant class, afternoon lessons and a wartime class - with drill done properly in the yard rather than in a corridor and proper outdoor play with correct playground toys.

Today was the last chance for the public to see the school in its unrestored state as the builders move in tomorrow and are expected to complete their work next spring. As you will see from the pictures below they have a tough job.

If you want to know more . . .
http://www.bartonuponhumber.btinternet.co.uk/school/heritproj.htm
http://www.northlincs.gov.uk/NorthLincs/Leisure/heritage/QueenStreetSchool/ConservationPlan.htm

Our second visit was to 51 Fleetgate.

Behind the facade of this unprepossessing little shop hides the oldest house in Barton dating back to the 1300s. We were quoted an expert opinion that is is the finest mediaeval timber frame building in the north of England, although (having seen - for example - the Merchant Adventurers' Hall in York, not to mention Little Moreton Hall, Speke and Rufford Old Hall which three may be too late to count as mediaeval) I am inclined to take this with a pinch of salt. Judge for yourself: here are the interior and exterior of the back wall of the house -

Having said that, the reception was friendly and the guided tour round the house was interesting. We were told not merely about the distant past and architectural history, but about Mr. Clipson, the barber, who lived and worked there for much of the 20th century who sounds a delightful character. He resisited change - the only running water in the house was in the barber's shop, and until his death in 1989 he continued to cook on the 'new' range put in by his parents in 1903. Once again there is a website with plenty of information -
http://www.geocities.com/fleetgate51
Unlike the Queen Street School where the state of dereliction is to a large extent what we had come to see, this is (like the Amy Howson) pretty much a completed project. Sadly (again like the Amy Howson) there is a scruffiness in the way it is presented which could so easily be avoided. In both cases the main area to be exhibited was filled with the detritus of running the trust (exacerbated by a very scruffy kitchen/galley area on the Amy Howson) which could and should be cleared away to show the trust's achievements to their best advantage.

I didn't take any interior photos on the ship, but these desks and chairs blocking a mediaeval window in a room so crowded with stuff that there was hardly any space for visitors to stand give an indication of what I mean.

We finished the day with a quick visit to Caistor Church where there was an exhibition about emigrants from Caistor - mainly in the nineteenth century. We arrived at 3.35 and it was due to close at 4.00, but a christening party started arriving so we made ours a flying visit.