As the old Church High building is renovated, one of the hardest things I have had to come to terms with is the reconfiguring of the space.  Areas at the top of the building I loved for their individual personalities and functions have been opened up in a way which jars the senses uncomfortably; conversely, former social spaces on the ground floor are now being sectioned off by stud walls into little cubes.  It was a long time before I could get near the top north-east corner of the site and when I eventually got there, it was a big shock.

Even if you weren’t ever consciously aware of walking under a corrugated clear plastic roof light at the very top of the north main staircase, if you’d looked at the north extension flat roof area using Google Earth, you’d have noticed a few quirky features.  The roof light, little porch structure housing the door out onto the roof (reached via a metal staircase secreted away in the cleaner’s cupboard to the right of the ICT Suite door) and a row of small port-hole-like glass globes designed to let more light into the room below were all very characterful and, as such, so very, very Church High.

No doubt close proximity to the new circulation extension is one of the reasons why this particular area of the building has been so heavily reconfigured.  Part of the huge overhaul to ‘future-proof’ the building has clearly focussed on evening-out this area of roofline.  Certainly my first thought when I got there was ‘Where is the roof?’

My second thought, which followed hard upon it, was ‘Where has the IT Manager’s Office gone too?’  This was very disorientating indeed.  Following the dismantling and restructuring of the mezzanine-levelled LRC in which he invested so much of himself, the only sign that Steven Farrell’s office was ever there now is a brownish, L-shaped outline on the grey concrete floor. He could be forgiven for thinking that his mark has been totally erased from the place now, but his Church High legacy lives on: in the digital magazines, the new Heritage website and as the technical expertise behind this blog.

As a good friend of Steven’s, I was always popping in and out of the office, so this all felt very strange indeed to me – and not a little sad.  It was an odd, L-shaped room, always abuzz with the noise of computer fans and always full of busy.  This is where you went if you needed anything done quickly or something had gone badly wrong and you really, really needed help.  And you always got it too.  From this office, in addition to managing the NCHS IT hardware, software & budgets, 5 servers, webmail system and supporting teaching & administrative staff, Steven also created and managed the website.

I remember the far end of the office as being ‘the business end’, alive with monitors displaying mesmerising colourful screensavers.  At the other end of the ‘L’, for anyone who didn’t know it, was the evidence that Steven was a very busy man.  The notices hurriedly blu-tacked to his door when he was called out to troubleshoot somewhere in the building or was down at Central always made me smile.

For those ‘in-the-know’, the door to the IT Manager’s Office also retained a quirky feature which offered a clue to the room’s former usage.  Before the office was specially created for Mr Farrell at the time of Lesley Smith’s New Century Challenge building programme, this space acted as School Sickbay, a room which was then relocated onto the ground floor corridor as part of a suite of Pastoral rooms.  I remember old Sickbay well, especially the sound of the sickbay bell if it ever rang in the staffroom: it made you jump.  Sick pupils requiring attention in the ‘old days’, pressed a bell on the side of the door.

The IT Manager’s Office was positioned here at the turn of the Millennium so he would always be on hand for staff working in the adjoining Staff IT Room and for IT staff teaching in the new ICT Suite.  The Staff IT Room was kitted out with the same furniture as the LRC.  It was always pleasant to work there looking out onto the roof.

In my time, I have also known this room as a Careers Room, but at the moment, this little complex of rooms and short corridor is just one big open space.  Part of the Staff IT Room area will be turned into a Deputy Head’s Office; the rest of the space will become a large landing providing access to both the new stairs and the lift.

Although the ICT Suite was kept locked when not in use, it could still be accessed by staff via a door connecting it to the Staff IT Room.

The fact the IT Suite (initially two teaching areas separated by a glass screen) was painted primrose yellow, benefitted from numerous circular light port-holes in its ceiling and also had multiple windows thanks to its corner aspect made it a very bright and airy room in which to work.  Because of this, the room was always very busy.

Although this area is just one big open space at present, the space will be separated into two again very soon, this time into classrooms.

Coincidentally, Steven Farrell and Headmistress Lesley Smith both took up their positions at Church High at exactly the same time, January 1996.  Looking back now, it is quite amazing to think how much the School changed in such a relatively short period of time.  Owing to the creativity and forward-thinking of both in their own spheres of influence, Church High changed from a rather traditional bookish place (not in itself necessarily a bad thing) to a modern digital 21st Century learning environment with a computer & projector in every classroom, 4 bookable IT teaching spaces and a high pupil-to-computer ratio allowing a highly creative and flexible approach to work.  The new century challenge was duly met.  ‘Computer Corner’ ruled.

The image I’ve chosen to open this post is of the top floor landing of the north staircase in July 2014.  If the wall on the left seems bare, that’s because you are unlikely to have seen it without this picture:

On the empty hook below, a framed notice used to hang recording in calligraphy an important piece of School history: ‘The Raphael Madonna [which hung on the south wall of the Hall] , the Roger Van der Weydon Adoration, the prie-dieu and the hymnboard were presented by the Old Girls in affectionate remembrance of Deaconess Eva Mary Siddall who was head mistress from 1894-1902 and retained a lively interest in the school which she loved until her death on 15th February 1959.’

Deaconess Mary Siddall was the second Headmistress of Newcastle High School and it is typical of Church High that she was prominently remembered right up until the building closed in 2014, despite the fact that by then the picture had become just ‘part of the furniture’.  This area of the top corridor has only looked this way since 1954 when a third floor, allowing the creation of a long-awaited Library, was added to the flat roof of the 1933 two-storey north extension. If you look very closely, the join can just be detected in the brickwork, but only if you know what you are looking for.  They did a good job.

The Jubilee Book (page 40) describes the changes at the end of the main corridor to allow access to the new north extension at this level.  The landing space created for this purpose was virtually identical to the one added 20 years later on the top corridor I began by describing: ‘In place of the big window on the stairs, there is now a staircase leading up to a new staff room (the old staff room is now a form room), two new form rooms, a useful little room containing a sofa, the medicine chest, and a radiator, for the succour of invalids and the injured, some cupboards, and eventually a flat roof which is marked out for Tenniquoits, and which is designed to carry another room when, and if, this proves necessary.  In the meanwhile it is a pleasant place for air and sun.’  The 1933-4 Jubilee School Magazine features a wonderful pupil’s black & white lino print showing girls enjoying the sun on the roof.

As the magazine for 1954 made clear, it was with great excitement that the Library was finally opened on the newly-created third floor of the north extension.  There had been a Library Fund set up for many years previously and in 1949 a temporary library had been set up in one of the form rooms.  The Centenary Book tells us that by 1952 Mr Clive Newcombe’s designs for the flat roof space had been accepted.  In addition to the Library, the design included a cloakroom [later to become Sickbay/IT Manager’s Office] and an Upper Sixth Form room [later the Careers Room/Staff IT Room].  It was opened on July 16th 1954 by Mrs Mildred Horsley, an Old Girl of the School herself and a very proactive Governor.  A wooden commemorative plaque remained in place until the ICT Suite arrived.

The Centenary Book records that ‘Before she performed the ceremony, Mrs Horsley told us that Deaconess Siddall had begun to dream of a library.  Miss Gurney had given several bookcases.  The Governors had made an annual grant towards library books.  When Mr Newcombe designed the dining room and rooms above before the war, a flat roof was left as “an act of faith”.  The war and the immense rise in building costs made it impossible to do more then, but the dream had been realised.  Many gifts were given, such as a librarian’s desk, which Mr Nusenbaum had specially made, an oak table provided by Mrs Waterman in memory of the 15 years during which she and her husband had cared for the school, and an 18th century clock given by the Old Girls in memory of Miss Dickinson.  To raise the money to finish paying for the Library, Old Girls, parents and the School worked for a year for a bazaar held on 23rd October.’  Quite clearly, the Library was then the pride of the School.

The Library was a wonderfully atmospheric place.  I remember well the parquet floor, heavy oak tables and the red leather of the seats contrasting with the wood of the bookcases lining the room’s walls.

When I joined Church High in 1985, the book ruled, of course, and the Librarian was an ex-Maths teacher, the gentlemanly John Waite.

Computers had arrived at Church High by then – the School’s first Computer Club began in 1984 – but those first machines ‘lived up the road’, by the red letter box, on the top floor of Gurney House.

When John Waite retired, the Library became the realm of the genial Janice Fox for the next 10 years.  Mrs Fox’s welcoming smile, humour and wonderful displays all added to the vibrancy of the space.

At the turn of The Millennium, there was a real sense of loss when the Old Library  was dismantled and all the books transferred to a temporary residence in what was then known as Room 16 on the ground floor of Tankerville House across the road.  To fulfil Lesley Smith’s modernising vision for Church High, The New Century Challenge, the top north-east corner of the building was now destined to become a state-of-the art ICT Suite thanks to the new IT Manager, Steven Farrell.  It’s hard now to remember it being any other way.

 

I have always loved the very top corridor of the Church High Main building.  Those unmistakeable  echoey school sounds which used to travel up the north stairwell from the main corridor below became muffled the moment the dark green fire-door closed behind you.  I never lost the thrill that I was now walking through the roof eaves.

Perhaps it was the floor-to-ceiling sky blue walls or the fact that you could touch both sides of the passage way as you walked along, but it always felt very comforting to me up there.  It’s only struck me very recently why it seemed so easy to feel at ease at Church High (something everybody who joined the school would comment on).  With green at your feet and pale blue at eye level everywhere you went in the building, things always felt sort of ‘the right way up’.   The colours mirrored nature.  It’s how the world was meant to feel.

This area of School is first mentioned in the Jubilee Book when what we now know as the Dining Room and Staff Room block was added to the main building in 1933.  The 1935 history tells us that ‘extension at the north end was made possible by taking down the caretaker’s cottage (in place of which a flat has been built in the space under the roof).’  The caretakers at that time were Mr and Mrs Mattison and it would have been then that the four front dormer windows were added too – apparently none too subtly either, according to the present work-force.  Most of the king posts were simply hacked out.

In later years, this space under the roof with its narrow corridor, sloping ceilings and small but characterful rooms would be adapted for Sixth Form use, as it will be once again when the renovated building reopens in September.  Although I taught one or two S Level lessons up there as a young teacher, for most of my time at Church High I knew the lofty heights of the top corridor as ‘Administration Alley’, the hub of the school, which housed the indispensable folk.

Sadly, since the demolition of the north staircase – something I still find hard to believe was actually allowed to happen to an Arts & Crafts R.J. Leeson designed building  – it’s no longer possible to approach this special space the way I’ve just introduced you to it.  Instead, for a similar effect, we must use the existing south stairs.  For now, the familiar blue-green paintwork is still there, but it won’t be for much longer, of course.  The new school will be neutral.

To our left is the room created in recent memory for the Head of Marketing, Head of Pastoral Care, Director of Studies and SENCO by lowering the ceiling of Room 8 (latterly a Maths room) below it.

To our right, is the room initially created not too long after I joined the school for the storage of GCSE coursework and where David Cocallis worked most recently managing SIMS and data systems.

Once up the step and through the doorway, although the dividing walls are all now knocked down, the corridor can still be made out down the left-hand-side if you knew it was there in the first place.

On the top floor, the offices were on the east side of the corridor with the smaller eaves spaces on the west side used for storage.  From the south, the first office you came to on the right- a room I remember once being a classroom – belonged to the Deputy Head.  I served under three Deputy Heads at Church High: Gillian Willett, Yvonne Fleming and from the late 1990s to 2014, Alison Roe.  I knew Alison initially as a Geography teacher, then as Head of Geography, as my Director of Studies and finally as Deputy Head.  By 2014, Alison had devoted 34 years’ service to Church High.

The space behind the next dormer window in the roofline was divided between the Staff Gentlemen’s toilet with changing area and the Alumnae Office, home to the multi-tasking Sarah Timney: NCHS Old Girl, parent of two Church High daughters, teacher in both Junior & Senior Schools and finally Events and Alumnae Co-ordinator.  Sarah used her detailed knowledge of Church High and artefacts from the Alumnae Archive to create an illustrated Timeline History of the School for the final ‘Heritage Edition’ of the School Magazine.

Before the third dormer window, an intriguing wooden structure has now been exposed.  It was an unexpected find and Wates were going to knock it down until they realised it was structural.  I had an idea what it might once have been the moment I saw it, and I have subsequently been proved right, but that’s the subject of another post.  It now seems this must have been our Alumnae Archive store.

The next room on the right, the third dormer window, has been the Bursar’s Assistant’s Office since 2001/2.  It has always housed the School safe in a strong room behind it and, for the last 17 years, it was ‘home’ to the indefatigable and ever cheerful Brenda Cavanagh.

The room behind the last dormer window (the first office you would come to on the left if you entered the top corridor at the north end), has been the Bursar’s Office since 2001/2.  Before then, the Bursar and his Assistant shared the room next door and this space was the English Department book cupboard which was moved into a smaller space nearby in the west eaves.  I knew three Bursars in my time at Church High: Geoffrey Doxford, Dorothy Ratki and finally Peter Keen, who ably managed the Church High finances & buildings, as well as being Line Manager for all NCHS Support Staff, for 21 years.

It’s hard to encapsulate the exact ingredients that made Church High such a special place and a very happy working environment; life there certainly wasn’t exempt from its everyday ‘ups and downs’ over the years.  Nonetheless, I worked there extremely happily for 29 years and would have continued to do so.  I know I wasn’t alone in feeling this way either.  In its 129 year history, the School has had only twelve Headmistresses.  During the war years, their tenures, understandably, tended to be short.  However, four Heads guided the School for more than ten years and it is these ladies who really left their mark on the School.  I count myself very lucky to have served under and learned from two of them.  Mrs Lesley Smith was Head for 12 years (1996-2008); Miss M.R. Wood [latterly Mrs Pybus] for 20 years (1945-1965); Miss Patricia E. Davies for 22 years (1974-1996).  The School’s most influential Headmistress was undoubtedly Miss Louisa M. Gurney, who served for 34 years in total and actually increased numbers during the First World War.

An Old Girl like Sarah Timney, from 1886-1937 Miss Florence Dickinson was also connected to the school for decades as pupil, teacher and, ultimately, an exceptionally well-loved Deputy to Miss Gurney.  She started Newcastle High as a young girl in the Jesmond Road houses, confused by which door of the four was the main door, and taught at both Newcastle High and Church High for 38 years (1899-1937).  The Jubilee history makes it very clear that such records of long service are not just confined to the teaching staff, but also extend to the governing body and support staff too.  The first caretakers, Mr & Mrs Waterman, stayed for 24 years and as we know from the staff mentioned in this post, this was not unusual.

So it should come as no surprise to those who know the School that the people working in their offices on the top corridor tucked away in the ‘Space under the Roof’, had years and years of service to Church High between them.  Nor that they kept School ticking over like clockwork.  And I haven’t even got to ‘Computer Corner’ yet.

Whichever end of Tankerville Terrace you approach it from, the pace of progress on the new build site is clear for all to see.  As I’ve said before though, renovation work behind the brick façade of the old Church High main building is much harder to fathom.  If you’re planning a heist, having ‘someone on the inside’ is invaluable.  And where I’d be now without Wates’ help doesn’t bear thinking about.

For my first site tour, I’d been invited to join the official inspection party.  Although a fantastic opportunity, the only snag was I was just a ‘tagger-on’ and delays meant the tour lasted only 25 minutes.  For someone like me who wanted to soak it all in, this meant I ended up missing out completely on the top floor of the building.  However, six weeks – & many new friends – later Wates were the game-changers.

Aware the interior of the main building was changing all the time, one of the Wates team, Conal Stamp, kindly offered to give me a main building tour after my lunchtime photos on February 24th.  His timing was ‘spot-on’ for me because, once inside, it was clear things had moved on fast and it was a very good time to visit the top floor too.  Conal took me all around the building and, most importantly, allowed me to photograph new additions and old features newly exposed at my own pace.  This allowed an invaluable record of this amazing building at a pivotal point in its renovation: with its new layout now in place yet still stripped back to its original features; largely uncluttered by new building materials and also in bright sunshine.

I took over 150 photographs that afternoon which have now been linked together at the end of this post to re-create the feeling of an eight minute walk around the regenerating old Church High building.  It’s important to let you see things for yourself, I think.  However I do intend to focus on the area of greatest change, the top corridor, in the next few posts.  But for now, the rest of today’s post will point out for you the most note-worthy things I saw that day.

My tour this time began at the back of the building, entering through the glass door at the very back of the modern 1998 Barbour Wing.  Walking past the Home Economics room to the left, it was clear that the main activity on site at the moment was plumbing.  Apparently, modern building regulations require all pipework to run over-head not under the floor, so travelling along all the corridor ceilings was a complex, weirdly-beautiful network of bright copper piping.

Through the glass of both modern extensions at the back of the building, the quadrangle presented as a maze of scaffolding poles.

The new extension is still without its glass at the moment, but it’s clear the new classrooms on the first and second floors are going to both have a fantastic view of the upper branches of the oldest tree.

I don’t know what was most exciting at this point of my tour – the fact I was now looking at something I had only previously seen from outside or that I was actually walking down the new concrete stairs!

But it was the old that took my eye as much as the new on this occasion.  I knew from six weeks ago that the distinctive glass-panelled doors of the first floor classrooms were being retained, which was really good news as they give the main corridor such character.  What I hadn’t expected was the fact that, despite the last room on the left of this corridor (most recently Maths Room 7) being destined to contain a toilet now, the original corner fire-place uncovered during the site-enabling works will definitely be worked into the new room design.  It’s going to be a lovely quirky feature.

Walking up the only remaining original flight of stairs to the south of the building, I noted the full form of the funny little semi-circular fanlight at floor level was now exposed in a very beautiful manner.

The brickwork arch now exposed above it made me question the purpose of this odd little feature of the south stairs more closely than I had ever previously done.  It was only when I got home and looked at exterior shots of the side doorway that the whole window structure became clear to me.  Discoveries like this are fascinating.

On the top floor, I knew the administrative offices had all been knocked through, but the exposed rafters and beams now made it clear these rooms really had been cut into the eaves – and quite literally so as a later conversation with a joiner would make clear.  When the dormer windows were put in, it seems the king posts were all just cut out.  This building has undergone radical change before.

Having said that, even this knowledge didn’t prepare me for the fact that at the far end of the top corridor not only was Steven Farrell’s IT Manager’s Office – formerly the old School Sickbay – no longer there in any form any more , that whole area also now had no roof!

The radical changes to the top corridor layout deserve – and will receive, as I have said – more detailed explanation, but now I invite you to join me on a full tour of the building with Conal as our guide.