LEAMINGTON’S Bath Place is celebrating its 150th anniversary next month, despite fire almost destroying the building in September.
A drop-in session is being held at South Lodge, Jephson Gardens, opposite the Pump Rooms on November 3 to commemorate the opening of Bath Place National Schools in 1859.
Many children in early Victorian England never went to school and more than half never learned to read or write.
Churches eventually started to run Sunday Schools, followed by day schools, and by the end of Queen Victoria’s reign, all children under 12 had to go to school.
In 1822, a school was founded in Church Lane, Leamington, and later transferred to Kenilworth Street in 1829.
Ten years later, half of the pupils were moved to the old workhouse in Court Street and in 1846 the Kenilworth Street site closed.
In 1851, the Court Street site was also closed and the school moved to temporary accommodation in Clemens Street.
Finally, in 1859 the National Schools opened in Bath Place as Leamington Priors All Saints Church of England Junior and Infants School.
The year after the school closed in 1973, Bath Street Community Venture was established in Bath Place, with the aim of helping local people access support, information and education they could not get elsewhere.
The Venture remained in Bath Place until September this year when fire destroyed much of the historical building.
A week of celebrations had been planned to take place in October but had to be postponed.
But at the drop-in session on November 3, visitors will be able to sign a memory book, add their name to a petition to restore services after the fire and visit the Victorian schoolroom at the lodge.
There will also be the chance to contribute to the Bath Place com-munity archive project, Moving Times.
The event runs from 9.30am to 7pm, with
refreshments provided by the award-winning Veggie Table Cafe.
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