All posts by Christine Chapman

Tankerville Interior Through New (and Old Eyes), Part 2: First Floor, Post 1, 5th January 2016

Alan Younger’s photographs were particularly interesting because they documented the work in hand beyond the ground floor of the old Church High building.  Any qualms I may have had about the survival of the most distinctive architectural features were quelled.  It is hard to put into words just how happy – and also how relieved – I felt when the first few shots of the first floor main corridor began to take shape in front of my eyes and things appeared largely familiar.

The main corridor looking north towards the site of the old staircase.
The main corridor looking north towards the site of the old staircase; a new doorway has been cut into the old staff area.
The main corridor looking north towards the site of the old staircase.
Looking right, the wooden south stairs remain.

It took a few seconds for me to re-orientate myself looking at the shots Alan had taken of both ends of the main corridor.  Presumably in an attempt to open up space and facilitate movement around the building, I now realised that both sets of swing doors onto the Hall corridor had been removed; so it seemed some of the old, highly distinctive, Church High woodwork had actually ‘gone the journey!’

The highly-distinctive, old Church High main corridor swing doors.
The distinctive, green, old Church High main corridor swing fire doors as they used to be.

I have always known these doors as fire-doors and it is true that manoeuvring through them at busy change-of-lesson times could be problematic, especially at the north end of the corridor where a further door set at right angles led off to the Art & Technology wing.

The door leading off the main corridor to the old Geography rooms and the newer Art & Technology wing.
The door leading off the main corridor to the old Geography and RS rooms & the newer Art & Technology wing has now been opened up.

And the north end did look different.   With the removal of the old wooden staircase, the stairwell & landings have now been levelled out.  This does make sense and will now make circulation much more streamlined in this area.  The plans show that new fire doors will be installed, but this time much nearer to what was the old Staff Room.

The first floor stairwell and landings as they used to be.
The stairwell and landings as they used to be.
The main corridor looking towards the old Staff Room as it looks now. The door to Room 2 is still visible to the right, but the irregular stairwell landings have now been levelled out.
The main corridor looking towards the old Staff Room as it now looks. The door to Room 2 is still visible to the right, but the irregular stairwell landings have now been levelled out.
Inside Room 2 (small computer room) now.
The inside of Room 2, the first networked IT Suite at Church High (a future 6th Form Seminar Room), at present …
... and as we used to know it, in use for ICT.
… and as we used to know it, being used for ICT lessons.

The area of the building which was once ‘out-of-bounds’ to pupils and designated Staff Only has clearly also undergone quite a bit of change.  This north-east corner of the first floor used to house the Social Staff Room, the Working Staff Room (which was actually teaching Room 1 when I first arrived at the school), a tiny circulation corridor and the Ladies’ toilets.  Now this area and the passageway in front of it have been knocked through to create one large space.

The old staff area as it is now looking onto the main corridor.
The old staff area as it is now looking onto the main corridor.
The Social Staff Room on the penultimate day of Church High.
The Social Staff Room on the penultimate day of Church High.
Me at my desk in Working Staff Room in first week of the holiday.
Me at my desk in Working Staff Room week 1 of the holiday.
The Staff Room Ladies Toilets.
Staff Room Ladies Toilets complete with surveyor’s signage.

According to the plans, in this north-east corner of the first floor a small corridor will still remain allowing access to the new lift from this level.  The lift shaft would be accessible somewhere to your left if you were standing on the small stairwell landing leading along to the Staff Room.  This area will be remembered by all.  How many pupils must have stood there and rung that loud bell over the years, just as girls did hoping for staff signatures on the very last day?

The Staff Room bell was very busy indeed on the last day of Church High.
The Staff Room bell was busy on the last day of Church High.

The north-east area will now mostly be taken up by two classrooms – both with beautiful views, it has to be said.  One of the three Deputy Head’s Offices is to be situated at the end of the new circulation corridor, where the light, leafy fire-escape-door-corner of the Social Staff Room used to be.  In recent years, this was one of my favourite places to sit on sunny, summer days, but, before that, this prime position was home to ‘Damaris’, the cheese plant, where she thrived.

My favourite light, leafy corner of the old Social Staff Room.
My favourite light, leafy corner of the old Social Staff Room.
Social Staff Room, Christmas Bran Tub, 2002.
The Social Staff Room, Christmas Bran Tub 2002 & ‘Damaris.’

 

Tankerville Interior Through New (and Old) Eyes, Part 1: Ground Floor, 5th January 2016

When you have been connected with a building for nearly 31 years, as I have with the Church High site, you will inevitably experience a lot of changes.  And, just as I am now working under my 4th Head Mistress in that time period, in September 2016 the old Victorian building will be handed over to its 4th site manager, Alan Younger.

Alan Younger, pictured with the plans for the Tankerville Site renovations.
Alan Younger in his Eskdale office with the Tankerville plans.

Through his present role as Facilities Manager of Newcastle High School for Girls’ Eskdale site, Alan is already heavily involved in the forward planning for our move to Tankerville in August of this year – as he was in August 2104 overseeing the transfer of Church High staff, filing, computer hardware and furniture to Eskdale Terrace.

Very much looking forward to taking care of a building with so much character and history, Alan is already very taken by some of the intrinsic architectural features, particularly the decorative, semi-circular glass fan lights above the two main exterior doors and the doors off the first floor corridor, which are almost Georgian in style.  And, of course, the wooden staging and old, beamed roof in the Hall.

The semi-circular glass fan lights above doors.
Semi-circular glass fan light of Hall door…
... wooden staging and beamed roof of the Hall.
… the wooden staging and dark beamed roof of the Hall.

At the start of the 2016 Spring Term, on the staff study day Alan shared with me some interior shots of the Church High old building which he had taken on his first site tour with a small GoPro camera.

Alan's camera takes great pictures for its size.
Alan’s GoPro takes great pictures considering its size.

I found these images fascinating, not just because the wide-angle fish-eye setting provided a striking perspective on familiar vistas, but also because they were taken on November 25th, the day I had taken my exterior shots of the damp-proofing membrane of the new extension.  Seeing these foundations shot from above was thrilling.

Foundations of the new extension taken from a Room 9 window looking towards the new build.
The new extension foundations taken from Room 9 looking onto the new build..
The extension foundations from the old staff room.
… and looking down from the old Staff Room window.

Alan’s first photographs, taken from the quadrangle behind the main building, provide us with the reverse perspective of earlier images of the conversion work to the floor of the Learning Resources Centre.

The LRC viewed through a back quadrangle window.
The LRC (left) taken through back quadrangle window.
The view to the right from the same window.
View of the LRC to the right from the same window.

Thanks to the photographs taken for me by a construction worker on November 11th, I already had a vague idea of the work underway on the bottom corridor of the building.  The picture taken of the Dining Rooms was a little dark, but the original ceilings were clearly still in place.  Two weeks later, Alan’s shot showed a different scene.

The old ceiling has now been removed in the Large Dining Hall.
The ceilings have now been removed in the Dining Halls

Up until this point, I had only been able to speculate about what changes were happening elsewhere inside the main building.  Nick White had told me in July that the key architectural features would be retained, but I wasn’t at all sure how much of the character and charm of the first floor corridor would escape unscathed.  How key or integral would the distinctive classroom doors & glass panels be considered, I mused, when the wooden staircase hadn’t survived?

The now demolished wooden staircase.
The now demolished wooden staircase.

 

The New Year Continuum, 1st January 2016

'The moon rolls over the roof and falls behind/my house'

There’s nothing like New Year to make one muse on the transition of one thing to the next, the old to the new, the past to the future.  And as 2015 rolled over into 2016 on Big Ben’s chimes last night, it was exciting to think that this new year would return us to Tankerville.

The moon high in the sky above my house last night also reminded me of Allen Curnow’s poem ‘Continuum’, a haunting lyric in which he explores our relationship with the natural world around us and probes the creative process from a writer’s point of view.  Writing this blog, often late at night when the world is still, allowing the mind the safety and space to slip backwards through time, I can identify with the peculiar sensations of continuity and disconnection he searchingly describes and the moments when inspiration strikes.

Continuum

‘The moon rolls over the roof and falls behind/my house, and the moon does neither of these things,/I am talking about myself.

It’s not possible to get off to sleep or/the subject or the planet, nor to think thoughts./Better to barefoot it out the front

door and lean from the porch across the privets/and the palms into the washed-out creation,/a dark place with two particular

bright clouds dusted (query) by the moon, one’s mine/the other’s an adversary, which may depend/on the wind, or something.

A long moment stretches, the next one is not/on time.  Not unaccountably the chill of/the planking underfoot rises

in the throat, for its part the night sky empties/the whole of its contents down. Turn on a bare/heel, close the door behind

on the author, cringing demiurge, who picks up/his litter and his tools and paces me back/to bed, stealthily in step.

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines the noun ‘continuum’ as ‘something that ​changes in ​character gradually or in very ​slight stages without any clear dividing points.’  It seems to me that there is no better word to describe the long process we have been going through over the last three years of merging Church High and Central High together to create Newcastle High School for Girls.  Nor the internal and external physical changes now underway to develop the Church High Tankerville site to receive the new school. 

Never very far away at the back of my mind, however, is a sense of strange wondering at a ‘bigger picture’ in the great scheme of things which is about to result in a beautiful old building, by a very circuitous route and a totally unpredictable turn of events, being returned once again to its original name ninety one years later on.

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This fact was brought to mind recently by an old broken chair you may recall I noticed discarded in the yard behind Tankerville House.  Its engraved back-plate left no mistake about its connection to the old building and also reminded me of a puzzle which will have eluded many a Church High girl: where exactly was the ‘C’ in the badge?

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All Closed Down now for Christmas and New Year, 23rd December 2016

It’s not exactly that I can’t keep away from the place, more a question of me being like a dog-with-a-bone once I’ve started something, being in ‘Town’ Christmas shopping that day anyway and an itching, burning curiosity I couldn’t quite shift to see what use that last delivery of steel had been put to in the intervening week – even if it was Christmas week and I didn’t have to be at school.

I knew the site was due to close down for the holidays on Christmas Eve, but, as I turned into an unseasonably sunny Tankerville today, everything seemed very quiet – and I mean very, VERY quiet indeed.

Tankerville Site all closed down for Christmas now.
The site is very quiet: all closed down for Christmas now.

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Fearing a totally wasted journey, I breathed a sigh of relief when I got to the old Junior School gates and, despite being faced with a totally inactive site in front of me, I spied Peter Wilson, the Wates’ Gateman, patrolling the far perimeter of the new build structure.  The main workforce had indeed gone home at 11.00 am, but Peter and a colleague were still on site as watchmen until the 24th.  Phew!

Peter Wilson with the Gateman's cabin and a new load of steel.
Peter Wilson, the Gateman’s cabin and yet more steel.

My journey hadn’t been in vain after all and, thanks to the light being extremely good and the site so empty, I was able to capture some very clear images of the completed concrete floor of the new build.

The newly concreted final section of the new build floor.
The newly concreted last section of the new build floor.

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Always a busy man owing to the heavy site traffic on a weekday, Peter had more time to talk today to explain both the recent work undertaken and what was next on the agenda for January.  Without him there to point it out, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the outline of a pile of yet more grey metal at the far end of the new build structure.  This, it turned out, was the first delivery of roof.

Roofing material piled up in the shadows of the new build.
Roofing material piled up at the far end of the new build.

But what I had really come to see was over to my left.  The red crane may have been all packed away and the lorry’s body reversed hard up against the open section of the old building – presumably as a safety measure while the site was standing inactive over Christmas and New Year – but it couldn’t disguise the fact that the structural work on the new extension had progressed impressively in a week.

My first close-up glimpse of the new extension steelwork.
My first view of the new structural work on the old building – despite the red lorry.

Even though I had been around when the new Food Technology and Art Wing was added to the Church High building in the late 1990s, the construction work underway then was always well-shielded from view – though we were certainly aware of hearing it!  However, this new addition was thrilling to see at close quarters – particularly because of the way it slotted into the old building’s structure.  A perfect marriage of old and new design, side by side.

Close-up view of the extension steelwork against bright blue sky.
Clear view of the new extension steel frame against a bright blue sky.  Who’d have thought it was late December?

Until now, I hadn’t fully appreciated that the top of the steel frame would be flush against the building on one side and free-standing on the other, although I should have been.  The third floor of the 1930s Library extension had, of course, been a slightly later addition.  The rooflines behind looked slightly incongruous at the moment, but I am sure this will all be sorted out as the work progresses.  From the positioning of the thin metal cross-pieces on the far left of the structure, it was now possible to start hypothesising which of the old exterior doorways and windows would soon be bricked over.  Indeed, as the old Church High staff areas on both upper levels are destined for classrooms in the future, would any of them remain?  As this is a circulation extension, a lift is also included in the plans.  The short, jutting-out section of steelwork to the left towards the back is clearly where the lift shaft will be positioned, facing the new stairs.

The beginnings of the lift shaft are at the back to the left.
The beginnings of the lift shaft can be seen to the left.

Turning around to leave, the corner of the new build structure was framed against the blue sky like the prow of a large ship.  It made a most striking image.  I was very glad I had come today.

Striking view of the corner of the new build nearest to school.
A striking view of the corner of the new build which faces onto the main building.

As I left Tankerville heading for home, over my shoulder the old building was still bathed in sunlight.  Admittedly the sun was low in the sky, but it was hard to believe Christmas was only 2 days away.

The building still basks in low winter sunlight.
Behind me the old building is still bathed in low sunlight.