Church High’s 135th Birthday Post: Alnwick Castle Days Remembered

There can be surely no more fitting subject for my 135th blog post about The Newcastle Church High School and its fascinating history than a new entry to mark the School’s 135th birthday: 21st January.  Today is that day.  And Church High is still with us, albeit now only embedded in the baseline legacy of Newcastle High School for Girls.  I haven’t forgotten it.  And won’t ever.  Nor, I am sure, have/will you.  And what a history our great School has.  Plenty to celebrate there.

I find it’s always worth keeping an eye on eBay if you love history.  In recent years, I’ve stumbled across one or two real NCHS gems on it.  Eagle eyes are often necessary.  However, even with good eyesight, if I hadn’t already been aware of the existence of postcards of Alnwick such as the example at the head of this post, I’d easily have mistaken it for a generic example of an aerial castle view (as above).  As always, the devil is in the detail: the text proclaims this is not Alnwick Castle, but Newcastle Church High School, Alnwick Castle.

Prospectus for Church High at Alnwick Castle.

It is a proud part of Church High’s history, that for the duration of the Second World War, Alnwick Castle WAS Church High School after the whole school was evacuated there on the invitation of the Duchess of Northumberland.  Always a fact worthy of celebration. Although there has been an Alumnae visit to Alnwick Garden in the last 20 years (to mark the addition of a bench on which a memorial dedication to Church High Evacuees had been carved), the last full reunion for NCHS evacuee Old Girls was in 1985, Centenary year.  However, in the Spring of this year, the evacuation of the School to Alnwick Castle is going to be celebrated in grand style on May 7th.

Programme for 2004 Alumnae Alnwick visit.

I first came into contact with Gemma McGuirk, one of the Castle’s archivists, a year and a half ago when I was looking for more detailed documentation on the School’s time at Alnwick.  I felt sure the Castle itself was the best place to start here and I wasn’t wrong.  Gemma compiled a Research Report for me, which I shared with NHSG.  Thanks to her, I learned the Girls and Staff had used the long underground Kitchen Tunnel as an air-raid shelter.  Thanks to me, the Castle now have a copy of the Centenary Book in their archive.  Because of this connection, Gemma emailed me unexpectedly last week to ask for my help.  The Castle wanted to contact as many Old Girls who had been evacuated to Alnwick as possible before May.  I immediately passed this information on to Amy Rodway, who manages the Church High Alumnae Facebook page for NHSG, and Rachel Gill, our archivist at Tyne & Wear Archives.  Castle Opening at Alnwick had requested permission to use the famous ‘girls on the castle walls’ image in press releases.  The first articles highlighting the Castle’s search for Evacuees to contact them appeared in The Northumberland Gazette and The Northern Echo on January 19th .

Evening Chronicle image of the School at Alnwick chosen to advertise the Castle’s VE Day event in May. [T&W Archives]
Gemma also hoped that I could spread the word amongst the Church High online family too and I promised her a blog post.  So, if you are a Church High evacuee yourself or know someone who was evacuated to Alnwick during the war, please get in touch with Daniel Watkins, State Rooms Manager at Alnwick, to join the celebrations.  Gemma told me that: ‘the Castle Opening side of Alnwick are currently planning a special day-long event to commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE Day on Thursday 7th May. They will be planning special activities and school visits, but what they would really love to be able to do is invite as many of the former evacuees as possible to return to the Castle for a special day out. As 2020 also marks 80 years since the first evacuees arrived at the Castle, it’s a doubly significant occasion, and they would provide afternoon teas and do as much as they can to make it special for them. It would also be wonderful to give today’s schools the opportunity to hear first-hand what it was like to be evacuated to a castle’.  Thanks to photographs from The Daily Mail in 1940, we know there was snow on the ground when the first evacuees arrived at the Castle.

The first day of Church High School at Alnwick Castle in 1940. [The Daily Mail]
Despite the frosty arrival, all the accounts of the Alnwick Years I have read describe the School adapting well to its new home.  Dr Yates, the Headmistress who took Church High to Alnwick and whom I had the great fortune to hear speak at my first Prizegiving as a newly-qualified teacher in 1985, may have written about staff fears of little ones slipping on the snow-covered battlements, but there are plenty of photographs showing sunnier times as below:

I am really looking forward to the day already, not least of all because May 7th is my birthday!  What better way to celebrate one’s birthday than amongst ‘family’ and like-minded people?  I hope to meet as many of you who can make it up to Alnwick too, work permitting, because this has the makings of a wonderful – and high profile – celebration of all that was great about Church High School and the type of person it produced.  Who knows?  I might even get to meet Janet, the NCHS evacuee who bought the postcard I bought online for one shilling and six pence in the School Shop at the Castle.  If this card did reach home, it must have been in an envelope, as she completely filled the back with all of her news.  I will think of Janet as we visit Percy Tower during our special tour of the Castle in May.  She sounds fun.  But that ‘Gulliver’s Travels’?  Frankly, very weird!

To find out more about the VE Celebration/CH Reunion at Alnwick, contact Daniel Watkins, state rooms manager at Alnwick Castle on 01665 511114 or email daniel.watkins@alnwickcastle.com

4 thoughts on “Church High’s 135th Birthday Post: Alnwick Castle Days Remembered”

  1. Your recent post made me chuckle, not because of actual content or style of writing, but because of a memory that was evoked. When I left Church High to begin my international teaching career, on my first day I had to give a presentation to the children about who I was. As I stood in front of them I remembered the tales of Alnwick Castle that you had shared with me, Miss Chapman, so I proudly announced that I had previously worked at Hogwarts…I was an instant hero.
    For the rest of my international school career, at every new school in every new country, I introduced myself in that way.
    On a completely separate note, I would like to thank you for the wonderful posts you share. Church High is such a big part of many people’s lives. As my own career developed and I managed many international schools, the first thing on my desk was always my photo of Church High, strategically placed to remind me of the values I was trying to bring.
    Now in my retirement, I look forward to your posts and my occasional sneaky walk up Tankerville Tce….keep up the good work.

  2. So pleased to have your blog back Christine – keep up your good work!
    I hope you are well, also your Dad – every day a blessing and a step forward.x

  3. This is wonderful research, Christine. So interesting and a lovely link with the Church High I remember with great fondness.

  4. I was so pleased to find this site. My wife Marian Stewart was born in Newcastle in 1934 and attended Church High in 1939-1940. The event of WWII in 1939 resulted in Marian being evacuated in Alnwick Castle. Marian’s father advised staff at the castle to boil milk provided to the children. Unfortunately this was not done and Marian was seriously infected with Brucellosis and nearly died. Marian’s parents rescued her and fortunately she recovered. I believe she graduated from Church High to attend Royal Victoria Infirmary and graduate as a Physiotherapist. Marian loved her school and the religious education which helped her to become a wonderful world-wide community and health care worker.

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