“In extraordinary times, the ordinary takes on a glow and wonder all of its own.”  Google tells us this quotation is from a book called ‘Human.4’  I don’t know the book, but I like the idea very much.  It perfectly sums up my motivation in photographing the Church High buildings pre-merger and also what ultimately drove me to start writing this blog.  It’s ironic that if the merger hadn’t happened, my relationship with the building would be very, very different and I would know so much less about it too.  And the same would apply to you.  For how long, I wonder, would all those voices from the past (imprinted on the building and carried in our collective memory of ‘The Old Church High’) have remained silent?  Because as Mike Lancaster wrote elsewhere in ‘Human.4’:  “I think that’s what we all want, in the end.  To know that we left footprints when we passed by, however briefly.  We want to be remembered.  So remember us.  Please.  Remember us.”   If those old concrete stairs could talk, whose voices would we hear?  Why the voices of past Newcastle High caretaking staff, of course.

I was researching Victorian school caretakers (there’s not much to find) when I came across this sad-looking house via Google images.  It gave me the shivers.  What happened to our building was bad at the time, but the derelict places website which documents decaying places, made it clear to me neglect would have been so much worse.  Did you know there was once a caretaker’s cottage on the Church High site?  Although aware they were a standard feature of Victorian schools, neither did I until recently.  Mentions of it in the Jubilee Book clearly hadn’t stuck in my mind: ‘Among the improvements to the buildings was the laying of new drains at a cost of £200 …. and some years later, in the summer of 1914, the building at the north end of the school of the caretaker’s cottage …. necessitated by the increase in the number of girls in the school…. This made it essential that the rooms occupied by the caretaker (the room next to what was then the dining room) should be turned into form rooms.’  The penny finally dropped in the Tyne & Wear Archives search room.  Filed under ‘Miscellaneous Photographs’ in the Church High Archive at The Discovery Museum is item E.NC17/7/24/3: 11 unidentified photographs.  This bothered me.  I requested the items and the photo below was among them.  This could only have been of caretakers, it seemed to me, but where was the photo taken?  I knew of no doorway looking like that.

Not only do I now have a fair idea where the photograph was taken, thanks to one of the lovingly-related memories in the Jubilee Book, I am now also 100% sure who these warm, hospitable-looking people are.  This is Mrs and Mr Waterman who gave loyal service to School for 24 years.  I can be sure of this because of the dogs.  The 1935 history tells us Mr and Mrs Waterman came to work at Newcastle High in 1903 following on from the Lumsdens.  At this time, the caretakers looked after the needs of the school almost single-handedly: ‘the only help they had was a charwoman on a Saturday morning – everything else, cleaning, answering the front door bell, looking after the furnaces, cooking dinner for twelve girls, and much else, they did alone.’   

We know from the remembrance ‘The Glory and the Freshness of a Dream’ in the Jubilee Book that the first caretakers were Mr and Mrs Lumsden: ‘Sometimes Mrs Lumsden, the caretaker’s wife, came in, a bent little old woman, wearing a cap of lace and a ribbon; or Mr Lumsden shuffled through in his shirt sleeves, with heavy feet and uncertain temper.  Mystery clung about their quarters, and the door on the red tiled corridor, opposite the big window, was always shut.’  Amazingly, one of the first photographs Giuseppe took in the building following the initial strip-out shows the remains of what seems to be this original red flooring.

The Jubilee Book also tells us ‘the Lumsdens gave place to Mr and Mrs Waterman, with Jester the brown and white terrier, and they in their turn to Mr and Mrs Mattison, with Major, the golden Labrador.’  We learn ‘it was with special regret [school] parted with Mr and Mrs Waterman in 1926.  They were known to everyone and in a miraculous way they knew and remembered every Old Girl as well as the girls in the school, whose invasion of their kitchen they bore always with good grace.’  It seems Mrs Waterman was the very first provider of Church High Cookies after ‘buns from Wilson’s ended during the war.  It was then that Mrs Waterman began to dispense first biscuits, and later, to meet the demand for something more sustaining, bread and jam, at recreation.’  It won’t be a surprise to any Church High folk reading this blog that the Jubilee Book also states that ‘through the whole fifty years, the caretakers and the maids have played no small part in the happiness of the school.’  In my time there, I certainly have very fond memories of Ethel, who looked after the Head and the Staff in Miss Davies’ time so well and two characterful school caretakers, Gentian Qeku and Dave Stout.

In Dave Stout’s time at Church High, the caretaker and his family (wife, Linda, and daughter, Susan) occupied 2, Haldane Terrace – the house immediately adjoining the Music Dept. at 1, Haldane Terrace.

I first learned about the existence of a caretaker’s cottage from the Jubilee Book when the 1933 expansion plans were being described: ‘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).’  It’s easy to forget there was originally a lot more land on the north side of the school building.  This postcard c1910 clearly shows a tree-lined gated area big enough to hold a small cottage, possibly quite similar to the domestic wing of Tankerville House .

It wasn’t until September when I was systematically working my way through the Plans and Elevations (E.NC17/6) in the Archive that I discovered the exact position of the cottage.  I came across it quite unexpectedly on an unfinished plan of the proposed laboratory for Church High School (Wood and Oakley architects, May 1927).  It appears to have been positioned more at an angle than I’d expected.  The plan also shows the position of a bicycle shed in 1927 adjoining the stone wall of the orphanage grounds (centre right) and the steps down to the Heating Cellar under the end of the north gable (left).

The orphanage gardens wall marked the most northerly boundary of the Newcastle High School site right until the building of the Junior School in the 1970s.  The fire-escape from the Staffroom in the 1933 extension exited beyond this wall onto the way-leave between Tankerville Terrace and what was later to become the school field.  Giuseppe’s photos of the site documenting the demolition of the single-storey kitchen block to make way for the new infill extension, show the wall at the point where the cottage must have run parallel.

The last people to live in the caretaker’s cottage were Mr and Mrs Mattison.  Because of this, they must have been the first couple to inhabit the new caretaker’s flat created in the eaves roof-space – and consequently, along with Major the golden Labrador, the first people to enjoy the stunning views from the new dormer windows.  In the Archive, there is also a fascinating document, a letter to Miss Gurney from Clive Newcombe of Newcombe & Newcombe Architects dated 21st November 1932, which outlines – and provides estimated costs for – a number of possibilities for further extending the building.  Miss Gurney is credited as the Headmistress who did most to move the School forward and this letter makes this abundantly clear.  In 1932, no less than six different schemes for extension were under consideration.  At the time, Miss Gurney and her Governors opted for Scheme C & D: a two storey extension with a boiler house and the caretaker in the roof at an estimated cost of £4,350 (with the option of adding a third storey at a later date).  PC Newcombe’s plans for the flat in the roof space can be seen below.

For the names of the last caretakers to live in the flat in the eaves, I am indebted to Barbara Weightman.  Barbara is a Church High Old Girl (although I didn’t know it at the time) now living in London who I met on two occasions while taking photographs on Tankerville last summer.  Also once again at the September NCHS Reunion in the renovated building, by which time we were virtually old friends.  Barbara told me she’d been up in the roof when it was the caretaker’s flat.  This would have been in 1958 when she was friends with Hazel Taylor, the caretaker’s wife.  I don’t know if they had a dog.

It seems such a long time ago now, but it was probably the surprise of seeing that newly uncovered fire-place in the eaves during the renovation work that first fired my curiosity about the previous life of the building.  My first thought was domestic quarters and, as it turned out, I wasn’t actually that far off.  This building has always been warm and welcoming, a fact the Jubilee Book expresses very beautifully, ‘always there was peace and goodwill and milk and biscuits.‘  It seems fitting therefore that an opened-up fireplace was the first reminder of the building’s past, when people did things differently.

An open hearth always reminds me of the wonderful final sentence of Gabriel Oak’s proposal to Bathsheba Everdene in Thomas Hardy’s ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’, a novel I taught many times to girls at Church High: ‘And at home by the fire, whenever you look up, there I shall be – and whenever I look up, there will be you.’  So now whenever I pass by girls working at the south end of the Sixth Form Library at Newcastle High, I can’t resist saying to them, “Just imagine Mr Mattison on that side of the hearth, Mrs Mattison sitting on the other and between them on a rug enjoying the heat of the open fire, Major the dog.”  The wondrous glow of the ordinary: feeling ‘At Home’.

 

Stairways hold a certain kind of aesthetic appeal for me.  Designed to connect one place – or floor – with another, presumably at the most convenient point structurally, they allow us to ascend and descend.  Often many times each day.  ‘No pain, no gain’ as the old saying goes.  Working at NHSG in the old Central High building, my daily grind unfortunately required me to shunt backwards and forwards between a Head of Year Office situated at the top of three flights of stairs in the main building (above) and ‘a funny little house at the back of the building’, as Ruchelle Everton described Eslington Tower to the Church High English staff in January 2015.  Back then, strange stories from ‘down at Central’ were relayed back to a variously curious, nervous and often dismayed staffroom:  ‘You actually have to sign something if you need one pen????’ As we that loved Church High well know, some places leave their mark on you.

Central’s stairs – in addition to a regular two-week timetable of 13 teaching classrooms over four buildings in the first year – ‘did me in’ in the end.  The radiologist who scanned my Baker’s Cysts at South Tyneside Hospital a year ago now (note cysts in the plural) said ‘the human body was never designed to go up stairs’. How very true.  Being forced to traipse up and down stairs repeatedly – especially carrying heavy things – takes its toll on the body.  Especially an unhappy body.  My ex-Central colleagues commiserated: ‘There are stairs just for the sake of it in this place!’  Or tried to offer comfort: ‘At least there’ll be a lift in the new building.’   Yet according to the 1888 plans, the original Newcastle High School building – the first purpose-built school in Jesmond – was actually designed to include a lift.

These were not lifts as we know them today, of course, as a decision was made not to install ‘the new’ electricity in the building initially.  Their position also makes it clear they were not intended for people.  The close-up below of the Newcastle High School domestic wing at the back of the building (the west end of the north gable on the ground floor) is fascinating.  Not just to see the existence of a lift – which must have been some sort of Victorian manual system, I’d have thought, much like the 1930s Dumb Waiter  installed in a similar situation between ‘upstairs and downstairs’ in the side extension – but also as an insight into NHS life ‘behind the scenes’ in 1889.

The lift in 1888 was positioned in a corridor just outside the pantry; presumably to enable coal to be transported from the Heating Cellar to the many open fireplaces across the building.  Up on the first floor, it was situated in the Housemaid’s Closet next to the Art Classroom, most recently Room 9, the RS Room at Church High.  Before the addition of the 1930s Library extension, the north elevation was identical to the south one so familiar to us today – with the exception of the positioning of the door.  We can see from Oliver & Leeson’s drawing that there was once a large window at the top of the stairs, as there still is at the other end of the corridor today.  The side door at the back of the building was clearly the entrance for tradesmen and the school’s domestic staff – everyone ‘below stairs.’

The ground floor plan of the building shows that this side door opened onto to a porch area next to the Kitchen from which a set of stairs led down to the Heating Cellar below.  Directly beneath the porch in the cellar was where coal was stored, as we can see below.

Coal was delivered via a coal chute at the back.  If you look closely, you can just about make it out in a close-up of the 1900 image of the back of Newcastle High’s original building from the Centenary Book.

My interest in the cellar was triggered back in the Spring when one of the Wates guys mentioned demolishing concrete stairs at the back of the building.   I couldn’t imagine where they were, although I knew there was a basement, of course.  This was Gentian’s domain and it contained a sort of workshop used by the site management team.  I knew there was an entrance to it from the back courtyard, but for a long time I confused it with the Boiler House.  Even I used to keep forgetting that the existing north extension, with the Boiler House underneath it, was not originally there when NHS opened.  So I was absolutely delighted after downloading Giuseppe’s images of June 1st to discover they contained photographs of the basement.  Giuseppe has said he detailed it as a project at this point in time, because if he hadn’t, it would have been left right until the end.  You can see why below!  It’s only very recently that I realised what it must have originally been used for and also its exact orientation.

Being able to see the original 1888 flooring timbers still in situ was amazing, but it was the stone steps which most interested me.  Were these the stairs the worker had referred to? And to where did they used to lead?   I now know from the architect’s plans of the building they lead down to the Heating Cellar from the back porch.

With not having been down there, I can’t be sure how Giuseppe’s photos of the old Heating Cellar connect up, but it looks to me that the doorpost to the right of the stairs leads onto the area below.

There is a fascinating old window down there which I assume is an attempt to let in some light between the small individual rooms.  Possibly the area marked ‘For access of the Boiler’ on the plans.

Originally, there was only one boiler down there, although I think I remember being told there are six being installed by Wates now.  I think it’s likely that this image shows the original site of the boiler.

We know from the newspaper report on the building plans the intention was to warm the rooms by ‘open fireplaces with the addition of hot water pipes and coils  …. each room with a separate system of pipes provided with a valve, so that the heating power will be entirely under the control of the teacher.’   Because of this, the boiler would have most likely been a steam-heating system fired by coal.   Which brings us back to the coal store with the external coal chute again.

Whether it features in any of Giuseppe’s long shots or not, there is no doubt that the following two images are definitely the coal chute.

In contrast, owing to the curved brickwork edge on one side, the site of the Victorian lift was much easier to pin-point in Giuseppe’s shots.

I know this whole post has been about an old cellar most people didn’t even know existed, but it’s been personally very satisfying to have been able to use Oliver & Leeson’s plans to ‘bring-back-to-life’ the room that once powered the original Victorian building.  And I couldn’t have done this without the help of Giuseppe, who at the time remained shyly adamant he’d rather not be photographed.  However, once we had moved back into the building and he was a constant presence around school compiling a snagging list on his phone, I did finally manage to catch him unawares taking a quiet moment in the courtyard on the 6th September.  The wooden fence he is leaning against is actually sectioning off the basement entrance.

I began this post with stairs I was all-too-familiar with, so let’s end with another set I will probably never get to use.  Only the people who took care of the building ever got to see Church High this way.

 

It took some time to decide on an image of the stage as the majority of us will fondly remember it.  In the end, I chose this wonderfully evocative shot of House Performing Arts from December 2008.  In keeping with our tagline ‘A Voice for Every Girl’, the stage can here be seen jam-packed full with happy, confident-looking girls – the Bamburgh House musicians to be precise – all totally at ease with their special celebratory moment performing in front of the rest of the School.  The dictionary definition of a stage is ‘a raised floor or platform on which actors, entertainers or speakers perform’ and indeed a ‘platform’ is how it was described on WH Wood’s architect’s plans.

There is no reference to the stage in the very first newspaper report on the new building in 1888, although we are told the ‘Assembly Hall will be a handsome room, with panelled dado and open timbered hammer-beam roof.’  However, the first reference to the completed Tankerville Terrace building in the 1935 Jubilee Book actually focuses on the stage: ‘On May 3rd, 1890, the new building was opened by Miss Helen Gladstone [Prime Minister Gladstone’s youngest daughter], and the platform party included the Bishop of Newcastle, the Venerable Archdeacon Hamilton, Canon Pennefather, Dr Garnett, the Principal of Armstrong College, and other members of the Local Committee.’ 

The very first Newcastle High School prospectus held by Tyne & Wear Archives contains a photograph of the Hall which must closely represent how the platform would have appeared on this occasion.

As a truly independent Independent School, Church High had to raise its own finance should site developments be required.  So it was in the early days of Newcastle High School too.  The Jubilee Book tells us that by 1897 ‘the school had already begun its policy of trying by its own efforts to raise money both for itself and others.’  At that time, thanks to performing tableaux vivants and a sale of work, £22 was raised, £15 of which was spent on pictures: ‘seven for the Hall and one for each form room’. Some of these pictures can clearly be seen in the image above as can the beautifully-carved ‘reading desk’, so familiar to anyone who knew Church High, which was bought ‘a year or so later’ with £9 raised via more tableaux vivants.

Thanks to the 1935 Jubilee Book we know that ‘The Church Schools Company allowed the School honours boards for the Hall to record the names of holders of the school scholarship, which had been instituted in 1906.’  However, these were not the Honours boards we all remember, at present being stored in Tankerville House.  ‘In 1911, the boards were replaced by the present Honours boards at the back of the platform, which were given by the Old Girls to record the names not only of the scholarship holders but of the winners of University honours.’

Again thanks to the Jubilee Book, we know that later on ‘a fund was started for buying a grand piano’ and that this fund also ‘received substantial help from the Old Girls who had already formed a dramatic club and were beginning to give something back to the school.’  On the evidence of photographs of the Hall in School prospectuses, the grand piano seems to have been successfully purchased by 1927/28.

Right up to Heritage Open Day in 2014, however, the Church High stage was synonymous with three pieces of wooden stage furniture.

Two splendid wooden items were purchased for the stage in recognition of the School’s Jubilee year in 1935: a chair and table.  The Jubilee Chair, on which every Church High Headmistress has subsequently sat, was commissioned at a cost of £17 and presented to the School by the staff.  If you ever looked closely at it, you would have noticed the following inscription at head height: ‘The staff of 1935 give this chair to mark the fiftieth year in the life of the school.’

A matching oak table was also presented to the School, this time by the girls, as part of the Jubilee celebrations.  Every Church High Headmistresses up to Miss Davies has sat behind this table for assembly and it was always positioned with the engraved side facing the Hall displaying to all the following inscription: ‘The girls of 1934 – 1935 give this table to mark the fiftieth year in the life of the school.’

A later school prospectus (post 1935) shows the platform as most people will remember it: with Jubilee Table and Chair in the centre and with a wooden pelmet over-head to allow the introduction of stage curtains, which in this image look very dark.  A wall clock (presumably for school examinations) has also been introduced and the observant will have noticed the stage has now also been boxed in.

I joined Church High in the Autumn Term of 1985, consequently just missing the Centenary Staff photograph taken in front of the stage.

The first school production I remember was ‘The Mikado’, but the first I photographed for the Senior School Magazine was ‘The Taming of the Shrew’, a lively production directed by Jill Mortiboys, Head of English.  At that time, the stage curtains were a deep yellow gold velvet with a light grey velvet back-curtain for production use.

One of Jill’s finest productions, in my opinion, was ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ in 1988.  The design suited the Church High stage so well and amongst a very strong cast – including Mrs Cox as Lady Bracknell – was Lucy Webster (Gwendolen) who went on to have a very successful acting career under the name of Lucy Akhurst.

Church High’s most successful professional actress, however, is Andrea Riseborough who has received acclaim on stage, TV and also the big screen.  She graced our stage many times as girl, of course.

In recent times, the stage curtains were royal blue velvet and with the advancement of technology it also gained a projection screen.

Just as Newcastle High School prize giving moved from the Hall to a larger venue, so the Church High school production – in latter years large-scale musicals – transferred to The Little Theatre in Gateshead and later The Peter Sarah Theatre, Newcastle College.  However, House Performing Arts festivals continued to use the stage and who could forget those riotous Staff Pantomimes too?

With the introduction of A Level Textiles to the Creative Arts curriculum, the stage was extended via a catwalk for fashion shows.

Whenever I look at the modern platform at the north end of the old Hall, I for one still see all the dark natural wood and the shiny gilt of the Honours boards in my mind’s eye.  For me, it will always remain peopled by those who gave so much of themselves to the life of Church High, as it was for the 2000 Millennium Staff photograph.

Even as all of the stage furniture accumulated over the life of the School was being dismantled in the summer of 2014, for me, the Church High stage still managed to retain its dignified presence.

 

‘All the world’s a stage,’ said Jacques in ‘As You Like It.’  However, at NHSG, the old stage is a stage no more.  It is now merely a raised platform area in the Sixth Form Common Room.  In the above image, taken in October 2015 after the north end Honours Boards were removed by Wates, the Church High stage layout is still recognisable from the two bricked up doorways, stage left and right.  Yet only one of these, the one to the right, is original.  You can still see the stairwell in front of it – site of more than one dramatic calamity over the years.  I’d never really considered why it was like that until I talked to Paul Brown, one of the joiners, recently.  He mentioned in passing something I should have realised from old photos.  There’s actually an earlier – semi-circular – low-level stage underneath.

As Paul did the initial joinery work needed to extend the stage, it was he who removed the ply-board at the front.  When we talked back on Tankerville Terrace, he said he wished he’d mentioned it to me at the time so I could have taken photographs.  However, if you look closely at the images above and below, I actually captured the first stage in March without realising it.  God is kind.

Giuseppe told me that the new, shaped extension to the old staging is his favourite modern architectural element of the renovated Tankerville building.  The company who provided this specialist joinery service in April were Aspen Joinery.  Neil and his brother, Dave, also re-modelled the steps in the eaves Marketing Office too.

Although the specialist joinery work was carried out in April when I was still allowed access to the building, on my visits I only saw the very start and the end of this process for myself.  However, as Giuseppe was on site inspecting work on the 7th, 8th and 11th April, the photos he took document the transformation of the stage more effectively – and more dramatically – than I could ever have done.

When I first joined Church High, the door stage-left was the way Miss Davies always entered the Hall for whole school assembly each morning.  The heavy clunk of the door closing and the sound of her foot-fall in the back stairwell which lead up to the stage was the School’s cue to fall silent before the hymn number was announced.  Both entrance doors were used during school plays, of course.  However, as large-scale musicals became prevalent in recent years necessitating a bigger stage area, the final time the Church High stage was used for a dramatic performance was the 2013 Staff Panto.  If you never got to enjoy the backstage area mid-show, the following photos I took during that last pantomime give you some idea.

Aspen Joinery completed installing the bespoke stairs on April 7th.

The next stage of Aspen’s work was to add a further level of tiering to the newly-extended platform creating a high standard finish.

I was fascinated to see in one of Giuseppe’s photos that creating this lower tier stage-right revealed a small section of unpainted dark wood panelling.  This is how the Hall would have looked originally.

In my next post I intend to take you on a trip down memory lane as far as the School Hall is concerned, but, for now, I will leave you with two final images.  Firstly, how the ‘Mark 3’ stage looked when Aspen had completed their work on April 26th followed by the finished product: the raised seating area of the NHSG Sixth Form Common Room as it appeared on Church High Alumnae Open Day.