MAP OF MAIN SCHOOL AREA (WITHOUT BUNGALOW OR PLAYING FIELDS)

INPUT FROM OUR MEMBERS

Shaun, your new plan of the gymn block is more or less as I remember it. I also have the feeling that the little shed where cricket bats were kept (and linseed-oiled) was behind the NW corner of the gymn. Steve
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Dear Steve,
I was very uncertain about the gym/classroom layout. I only recall a very few visits to that classroom altogether. I was always taught in the 'prefab' classrooms, which were divided by a 'concertina' wall. I shall amend the plan if I can figure it out.
As to the elms, I also was surprised to see firs in the sports' day photo. However, there was most definitely at least one elm, closest to the drive. That is where I learned to identify that species with it's very rough textured leaves. It cast shade over the corner of the playfield where the new 'slips cradle' was installed. (I recall when Mr. Mac trained us on it when it arrived... a kind of elongated bowl-shaped set of wooden runners set in a green-painted cast-iron support. The ball could fly off it in a very nasty way at times! Always keep your hands open with no curled fingers and touching at the heel of the palm!). Here is a very similar version to the one we had at WL:-

The distances and relative sizes of building are difficult. I think the shape of main house should perhaps be somewhere between Shaun's elongated form and my more rectangular one? Perhaps I can find this out on the aerial photo site.... the main building is probably pretty much the same.
Cheers and too-dell-oo, Robert
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Shaun, that's very good. At one time, the room you've labelled Staff Mess Room was used as a class room, as Robert's plan indicates. And you haven't actually marked the site of the table in the hall that contained the life-sustaining dog biscuits! It's near where your red blob is. Robert - I have some doubts about your memory of the layout of the gymn block. My memory is that the gymnasium adjoined the classroom (Col Kennedy's classroom, in my memory) on their east-west walls, giving the gymn a partial quadrangle to its south. And I firmly believe that your 'elms' were fir or pine trees (I remember thinking this when first reading your long memoir of WL). Pip pip Steve
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(Comment from Rob. I am now uncertain about the existence of an elm. I recall that there was an elm under which I used to sit during cricket at my next school (grammar) and must have confused it in memory. (Alas, alas, all the elms have gone now!)