MY STREET CHALLENGE - FERNDALE ROAD

Ferndale Road in Swindon dates from the late 1880s and was named by incoming homesick Welsh railway workers after a village in the Rhondda Valley, a fact I was unaware of.  It runs from Gorse Hill to Cheney Manor and is about 3/4 of a mile in length - unfortunately, though, because of traffic calming, the road has been blocked off about a third of the way along, which made taking the photographs somewhat of a challenge, but I have to say that Mr. HCB was an excellent and patient chauffeur.

At the Gorse Hill end of Ferndale Road is St. Barnabas Church.  The first Anglican Church in Gorse Hill was an iron church erected in 1872 in Tydeman Street, but it was decided that it would be better being at the hub of Gorse Hill and the land on which St. Barnabas now stands was bought for £250 from Thomas Arkell, a local businessman.

The foundation stone of the new church was laid on 4 October 1884 and the incomplete church was consecrated on 11 June 1886, but apparently, there is no record of why it was dedicated to St. Barnabas.  It is a beautiful church and has been not only a place of worship for the people of Gorse Hill, but also a community centre where various groups meet.  There are several photographs of the church in the collage, and as I managed to go inside the church, I took a photograph of the stained glass window dedicated to St. Barnabas and also one with the name sign for Ferndale Road.

During the Second World War, Ferndale Road was hit by enemy bombs, killing 25 people in the area.  On 17th August 1942, the worst night of bombing in the town, 19 people were killed in Ferndale Road - in fact, I have often wondered why there were newer looking houses at its junction with Northern Road, and after researching this, found that four people were killed at number 475 with further deaths in several other houses - and the row of houses shown was obviously rebuilt after the war.

I attended Ferndale Road School, both infants and junior, and had some very happy times there.  Ferndale School was originally built as a separate infant and junior school, however, due to the expansion of Swindon, north of the railway line, a larger site was acquired in Ferndale Road in 1905.  The new infant school opened in 1907 and in 1946 the complex was reorganised as separate junior and secondary schools.  I attended from about 1949 until I was 11 years old in 1956.

I couldn’t take a photograph of the junior school, so there are two of the infants school, which sadly looks very run down now.  I remember quite a few of the teachers in the infants school;  Miss Cripps was the Headmistress and some of my other teachers were Mrs. Bailey (whose son I later went out with when I was about 21 years old), Miss Walling and Mrs. Matthews.  Interestingly, when our older son went to school at Lainesmead, he was also taught by Mrs. Matthews and she did remember me!

The Headmaster of Ferndale Junior School was Mr. Nash, who was very keen on amateur dramatics, and was, in fact, a very good actor.  I remember Miss Jervis, who taught us country dancing, Mr. Gwyther, who was our singing teacher, and Miss Tanner, who was very strict and always got good results. Something to be said for discipline!

Even all these years after, I can remember that Miss Gilbert wrote in my autograph book when I was about to leave, “Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever, do noble deeds not dream them all day long……”  I have only just found out that this is from a poem by Charles Kingsley entitled “A Farewell” - so quite appropriate when I was leaving Junior School to go on to the Grammar School, having passed my 11+ examination.  

My very favourite teacher when I went up to the junior school was Mr. Mainwaring and I remember, to the delight of his pupils,  he used to recite the name of the town in Wales with the longest place name in Europe - Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (often shortened to Llanfair PG) and even wrote this in my autograph book when I left the school. 

Sadly, most of these teachers have now died, but they were happy times for me at the school, and the male teachers were particularly special as my parents were divorced and I missed having a father, so they took the place of a father for me.  The old photograph in the collage is me aged about 7.  

The best teachers are those
     who show you where to look,
          but don’t tell you what to see.
Alexandra K Trenfor

P.S.  Apologies that this is so long - but once the memories started coming back, I couldn’t stop them!