Embedded Files
Plans from 1960: some comments
The plans outlined below have been drawn by me and are, by and large, to scale and mainly accurate. They are intended to provide a realistic impression of what the school looked like after the completion of the extensions in 1960 and the notes below indicate what general uses were made of its facilities. The ground-floor plan, as shown, is not complete and does not include certain features, such as the upper playground, rural studies unit or bicycle parking area.
Ground-floor plan, 1960s and '70s
Ground floor
Main entrance on Higher Ardwick. Small car park for staff and visitors.
Staff, sixth formers and visitors used main entrance.
Entrance hall, dining room and kitchen. Entrance hall also used for dining.
Headmaster’s office and secretary’s office.
Secretary’s office had a hatch, which gave pupils access to secretarial staff.
Boys’ entrance/exits were on Higher Ardwick, near Union Street, and Durling Street.
Rooms 1 to 5 used mainly for English.
Room 1 briefly used as a staff room, about 1973-74.
Open cloakroom area adjacent to rooms 4 and 5. Small number of washbasins.
Steps leading up to the oldest part of the building, housing the small staff room, staff toilets and small rooms. Small A-level groups were sometimes taught in the old room once used as the headmaster’s office.
Old entrance on Ardwick Green North still used by staff.
Courtyard used for class photographs and housed the electric meters room.
Greenhouse erected in the courtyard following vandalism after it was first erected near the rural studies unit.
Practical subjects included woodwork and metalwork.
Old tuck shop still in use for many years.
Old door at boys’ former entrance on Ardwick Green North was permanently locked.
Chemistry, science and biology laboratories. Preparation room.
Cloakroom area off main corridor between science laboratories.
Steps from the yard down to basement.
Smoke doors on main corridor.
Gymnasium, changing room and showers. Double doors from gym to yard.
Some PE lessons in upper playground.
Stock rooms and cleaners’ store rooms. Boys’ toilets.
Four staircases in use, including stairs to the hall from near the gym.
Emergency staircase in the old building not used for safety reasons.
Before boarding buses for games, boys often lined up in forms in the playground.
At the end of break, boys were sometimes lined up alongside the building, left or right of the main stairs, depending on which classroom they were heading for.
Rural studies unit beyond the metalwork room.
Small play area behind metalwork rooms was sometimes out of bounds at break times because it was out of sight.
Back of school overlooked by Corporation flats.
Bicycles parked in covered area of lower playground.
First-floor plan, 1960s and '70s
First floor
Room 6 used for mathematics and other subjects.
Small room next to room 6 used by small groups.
Rooms 7, 8 and 9 used for foreign languages.
Room 10 used for music.
Machine (later technical) drawing room was converted into a staff room, about 1975.
Physics, science laboratories. Preparation room.
Hall used for multi-purposes, such as assemblies (whole school and year), examinations, musical and dramatic productions, concerts, parent-teacher meetings, staff meetings, Masses and so on.
For Masses, the altar was positioned at the rear of the hall, to the right of the entrance and adjacent to the chaplain’s room/sacristy.
Small staff room; inadequate. Staff toilets nearby.
Staff room later converted into an office for the second deputy head, about 1973.
Library also used for English.
There was a dark room in the technical drawing room. For some years the school had a photography club.
Science lab and technical drawing room used by staff heading for other rooms (and by boys if they could get away with it).
Caretaker’s flat.
For assemblies, Mr Rocca entered hall via use of the stairs near the gym.
Cloakroom space, stock rooms, store rooms and boys’ toilets.
Emergency staircase unused.
Second-floor plan, 1960s and '70s
Second floor
Room 11 used for bookkeeping and commerce.
Room 12 used for mathematics.
Room 13 used for history.
Room 14 used for history and economics.
Room 15 used for history.
Rooms 16, 17 and 18 used for geography.
Emergency exit door between rooms 16 and 17 facilitated evacuation in the event of fire in room 18 or beyond – provided a continuous route to safety via the art and craft rooms. (Emergency staircase deemed to be unsafe.)
Steps down towards room 19, which was used for mathematics.
Small room beyond room 19 once used as a common room/study area for sixth formers. (Access was through room 20, which caused interruptions to lessons.)
Room 20 was the old dining room and was used in the 1960s for a variety of purposes, such as lessons in English and French and as a chapel for class Masses. It was subsequently declared unsafe and taken out of use.
Art and craft rooms used by staff heading for other rooms (and by boys if they could get away with it).
Cloakroom space, stock rooms, store rooms and boys’ toilets.
For many years the rooms shown on these plans were used predominantly as specialist classrooms for the subjects indicated, but were also used for other subjects on occasions. With the teaching of some A-level subjects in the sixth- form centre from the 1970s, more classrooms in the main building became available and were used for the teaching of other subjects.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse