Memories of Chippenham Secondary and Technical School with Peggy Burgess

One of Chippenham’s architectural landmarks is the old Victorian red brick secondary and technical School building built in 1900 which stands at  the corner of Cocklebury Road and Saddlers Mead which may be lost forever unless the building is redeveloped and found a new lease of life.  

Sadly the building has been boarded up since Wiltshire College moved out and into their new modern purpose built campus buildings in 2015.  There have been many attempts to save the building along with all it’s  late Victorian external and internal architecture including the parquet  flooring, staircases and design elements of the Arts and Crafts movement which still survive today.   The Chippenham Civic Society and many people living in Chippenham hope  that the building could be redeveloped to save this great example of Victorian social architecture before it disappears from the townscape of Chippenham.  

With the future of the old red brick building still in limbo, and before the building is lost for ever I was intrigued to find out a bit more about the history of the building and tell some of the stories  of what life was like in the building’s heyday. 

Turning to social media to find local people who were pupils and students of the Secondary and Technical School I came across Peggy Burgess who was a pupil at the school during the mid 1950s.

When I popped round and interviewed Peggy at her home in Chippenham we sat down and chatted  about memories of life as a pupil in the old red brick Secondary School building, what school life was like back then for her, memories of being taught in the old wooden classrooms which surrounded the building, what some of her teachers were like and the type of teaching at the time.    Peggy also shared her opinions on why the building should be saved and what it could be used for. 

     

Sadly at the time of putting this podcast together to my knowledge there have not been any updates or news about the future of the old secondary and technical School building.  The building still remains boarded up and sadly it might be the case that the building will end up in such a state that it cannot be given a new lease of life or redeveloped to save this iconic architectural Chippenham landmark.