Fradley Village News - 1st August
| Published: 3rd August 2008 20:53 |
Last week our dear old Victorian schoolhouse was finally demolished, and for many of us it was heart-breaking to see it go.
During its long life, the school house was not only an extremely useful building - it was also a village icon. It had great character and, if there had been any justice, it should have been preserved for posterity.
But Fradley's child population has burgeoned in recent years, the LEA had a statutory responsibility to provide four new classrooms, and they insisted that the schoolhouse would have to go to make room for them.
William Shaw laid the foundation stone for Fradley's new primary school and the Reverend W Inge opened it on Monday June 28 1875. At that time it was regarded as merely an adjunct to All Saints School and was known as the ‘Alrewas Fradley Primary School'. On July 12 1951 ‘Alrewas' was dropped from the name of the school and on September 11 1957 it was officially renamed ‘St Stephen's School, Fradley'.
Before 1971 the school consisted of just the schoolhouse, because Fradley's child population was small and, at the age of eight, they all moved on to Alrewas school.
Even when the modern school buildings had all been completed in 1974, the old building continued to be used for some classes, and over the years it also provided valuable space for many group activities other than education. For a long time it was our youth centre, and when closure became necessary for safety reasons, local youth groups sorely missed it as a venue. At least that problem should be remedied soon, with the erection of a new youth hall expected to begin this autumn.
But St Stephen's Church now looks very lonely standing there without its ancient partner, and old-timers are grieving the loss of the Victorian schoolhouse; it was, after all, one of the few parts of Fradley that they could still recognise.
Proposed new town
If anyone has been confused by ITV Local News's recent references to the ‘proposed eco-town at Curborough', you can be reassured that it has not been resurrected, and Central simply got it wrong - twice. The eco-town is dead, but the standard town, for exactly the same number of houses in the same location, lives on, and FACT (Fradley Against Curborough Town) is continuing to fight it.
Following their withdrawal of the eco-town bid, the Curborough Consortium has been having backstage meetings with various agencies prior to re-presenting its application to the District Council. A primary concern for FACT is therefore to ensure that the community is consulted on any amendments made to the original application before the matter is finally determined by the Planning Committee.
The written responses of our Parish Council to the Government about the eco-town, and to the District Council about the standard town, can be found on the parish website: www.afspc.info/council/news.
To add your signatures to FACT's petition, visit their website: www.factinfo.co.uk. If you wish to offer some other kind of help, you can contact them via fact@accamail.com.
Post box and phone kiosk
It emerged at the last Parish Council meeting that a resident had complained about the condition of the red post box and phone kiosk by the Post Office and had asked if it could be repainted.
The reply was that this was not within the Parish Council's remit, as BT will not allow them to get the articles painted themselves. Also, as there are anxieties that BT would choose to swap our historic red kiosk for a boring modern grey one rather than repainting it, the issue should perhaps not be raised with BT.
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