What traces remain of Brincliffe Grammar School for Girls? Well, in Balmoral Road, the front wall still remains, running from No 23 Balmoral Road, all the way to the corner with Forest Road East and then past that for a few yards. It’s easy to see and it is virtually untouched. It’s a sandstone wall which continues round the corner and runs as far as what would have been the old boundary of the High School in, say, 1895. The wall continues for all this distance and the fact that it matches both of the two remaining Victorian photographs of the school is proof enough for me.
Here are the two pictures of Brincliffe still in existence. This is the older of the two:
And here is the one where the bike has been invented:
And here is a sample of the wall. The brighter, red one is modern, the tan coloured lower wall dates from 1870 at least. At the same time, you can see how, in modern times, it was thought wiser to make the original wall much higher.
The sandstone Brincliffe wall stretches all the way round onto Forest Road East and meets the old boundary line of the old High School (right). Here we are:
But what is this Victorian remnant? Some kind of fire hydrant?
At the side of No 23 Balmoral Road there is a pillar which clearly dates from the turn of the 20th century or earlier, and is visible in the second of the old photographs above. Here it is:
Further down, what has clearly been a gate to the school is still visible. In the controversial “pushbike-and-dog” photograph, it is down near the fir tree, but difficult to see. In the “Welcome, Munsters” postcard, it is the first gate you see in the wall and the ornate tops are clearly visible. Here it is:
As you know, I sometimes buy articles connected with the High School from ebay. A while back I produced seven blog posts called “Nottingham High School on ebay”. This link should take you to No 1 if you are interested. Sometime after #7 was published world wide, I bought this:
It shows a group of unknown children from what was called “Brincliffe School” although the presence of little boys must mean that events took place before 1907 when the Girls’ Grammar School started up. I have no idea whatsoever what is going on with all their sticks and costumes. But the picture and the words that go with it really amount to a cry which comes from well over a century ago. And that wordless cry says
“Here I am. I used to be alive like you.”
And those sentiments are present in the picture but they are also written on the back of the postcard:
It reads, as far as I can see:
“Yours Truly
Bernard Raven
as
A Farmers Boy
First boy on top row to the left”
Just have a look at him. The back row, the boy on the left. He can’t even be trusted to carry a stick, and appears to have lost his. But he is the one we can look at and we know his name. Bernard Raven. He grew up, perhaps he fell in love, perhaps he married, perhaps he had children of his own. I suspect we will never know. But with a little bit of luck, he will be read about, if only for a few seconds, in Australia, India, the USA, all over the world. I hope he was happy with his life.
John Knifton 