Oh dear, Jennyann's post was so long ago that I doubt anyone will read what I'm about to write in reply but here goes;
Just to clarify the Edmund Campion thing, this school was established in September 1975 following the merger of three local Catholic secondary schools; St Agnes' Girls Grammar School, St Thomas of Canterbury Boys Secondary School and St Margaret Clitherow Girls Secondary School.
St Margaret Clitherow School was built on the Pitts Farm Rd. site around 1964 and in 1975 became St Edmund Campion Lower School; the new intake went there and most of the older girls moved to the Upper School. Recently the Upper School has been extended and the Pitts Farm site has, as Jennyann rightly says, been cleared and developed for housing. St Edmund Campion School is now housed entirely at the Upper School site on the corner of Holly Lane and Sutton Rd.
Before 1964, there had been an old mansion type house on the Holly Lane/Sutton Rd. site, it was Norwood House, built by Sir Josiah Mason and it was his final residence. I am speculating a little here but I imagine it was sold soon after his death as by the end of the nineteenth century the house was a convent occupied by an order of Dominican nuns. The convent was St Agnes' and around 1900 a private school for Catholic girls had been established there. In time this became St Agnes' High School; still a private convent school; and it remained as such for a number of years, with buildings being added as and when required. In the early '60s there were plans to build a new convent building at the top of the Rosary walk (the path leading from the Orphanage Road entrance,which is still there although somewhat changed.) However, the Education Department stepped in and, needing more state grammar school places, built a brand new grammar school instead. Demolition of the old buildings, including Norwood House, and construction of the new, took place whilst the High School was still open, meanwhile the nuns themselves moved into a house on Silverbirch Rd. This house, the new convent, backed onto the school site so a private entrance gate was knocked out of the wall at the top of the Rosary walk so that the nuns could come and go. The new grammar school; also called St Agnes' was officially opened in, I believe 1964. I do have a copy of the programme for the day but I can't put my hand on it at the moment. At the time of opening, the school's pupils were a mix of new grammar school girls and old high school girls, or so I'm told. However, the grammar school was not to survive for long, as in 1975, after much debate, it was merged with the other two schools already mentioned and St Edmund Campion Comprehensive School was born.
The third school involved in the merger; St Thomas of Canterbury; had a more complicated history, which I can't remember enough of, off the top of my head, to go into now. Suffice to say in 1975 the site became the annexe to St Edmund Campion but it's cards were marked as the building was very small and as far as I remember seemed more or less of the pre-fab variety. It was situated on Sutton Rd., behind the much grander building that now houses Highclare School. I don't know exactly how long the authorities had planned to keep the annexe open, but their plans were no doubt foreshortened by at least two arson attacks in, I think 1978. I won't mention the rumours that were going around at the time regarding the culprit or their reasons for carrying out the attacks! By this time anyway, the boys had all moved up to the Upper School site. I'm not sure when the annexe was finally demolished.
I am more than happy to stand corrected if I have got any of that wrong.
Finally, if anyone knows anything more about the history of any of these schools, or of Norwood House, I would love to hear it. The same goes for any memories anyone might have of the schools or the redevelopment of the surrounding area. However I wonder if any of you will ever manage to stumble across this post seeing as it is in quite an old thread. Should have put it on the schools thread I suppose...oh well
