Marion Hearfield previews this year's Stroud Local History Society Summer Exhibition.

ONE of the displays at this year’s exhibition will explain how the four schools pictured started quite separately in different parts of Stroud before combining in the mid 1960s.

We are hoping that visitors will bring their own stories to add to our archives. Here are introductory pieces about each school.

Marling School

In 1882, S S Marling offered £10,000 if a trust was set up jointly with the parish church feoffees to provide higher education in Stroud: a boys’  school in Lansdown alongside a School of Art and Science. In the end the two were built separately.

Stroud High School

This was founded in 1904 as the Girls’ Endowed School by a group of local citizens led by solicitor Mr A J Morton Ball, who thought the girls of Stroud district deserved to have a secondary school to match Marling. As a suitable building was not available, the school was initially housed in rooms in the School of Science and Art in Lansdown, with 24 pupils and a group of pupil teachers. Stroud’s Urban and Rural district councils were persuaded by public opinion to raise a 6d rate to pay for a building at Beards Lane, on the site of the old gravel pit. The new Stroud High School opened in 1912.

Boys’ Central School

The Stroud and District Craft School (later the Boys’ Central School) was built in 1910 in Downfield Lane. The idea came from Mr Randall, the head of Brimscombe Polytechnic and the new building took some of the classes from Brimscombe, and also provided accommodation for the textile department of the School of Science and Art on Lansdown.

The Girls’ Central School

This site at Downfield opened in 1926. But its origins were during WW1, when the Cookery, Laundry and Housewifery Centre opened in the old British School at Badbrook. When the Central School opened it took its pupils from Badbrook, from Stroud School of Art, and the senior classes of local village schools. In 1928 the Boys’ and Girls’ Central Schools were both threatened with closure but a strong argument was made in favour of Stroud’s 60 or so industries. “Was this the time to destroy the best junior technical education they had in the county?” said Mr M Hills in in 1928.

  • The exhibition at the Museum in the Park opens on Saturday to coincide with Stroud Country Stroud and runs until Sunday, July 23. 

It is open every day except Monday, when the museum is closed.

This year’s exhibition includes stories of Holloway Brothers’ Clothing Company and why George Holloway has a statue in Stroud.
Society members will be available to answer questions and collect visitors’ stories.

Rolling slide-shows and a book sale will provide the opportunity for a quiet sit down.

Open from 11am to 5pm during the week and 10am to 5pm on Saturday and Sunday.