Castle 1906, Brambletye
Castle 1906, Brambletye Ref: 56690
Memories of Castle 1906, Brambletye
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Brambletye & local memories
Read and share memories of Brambletye and West Sussex inspired by Frith photos.
Brambletye Preparatory School
Memories of Brambletye Boys Preparatory School 1967 – 1971. When I went to Brambletye at the age of nine, in September 1967, it was my fifth school in the last four years. As my parents were routinely being posted within the Army, they felt a boarding school would give me a more stable education. I vaguely remember touring the school with them and Mr Blencowe, the Headmaster, one summer before term and being asked if I would be happy there for the next four years, to which I obediently replied, "Yes". The school seemed to be based on many military methods. Each boy was allocated to one of four Houses named after great British military heroes: there were Nelson, Marlborough and Drake, and I was in Wellington. Many boy's fathers had been to Brambletye when they were young and it was not unusual for them to insist their son followed in the same House. Instead of prefects we had Officers. As just one part of the overall military discipline we... Read more
The Happiest Days of One''''s Life.
Brambletye school, well set between the beautiful Ashdown Forest and thriving town of East Grinstead on the Sussex/Surrey border was a paradise on Earth for any schoolboy with an aesthetically romantic (!) imagination. I was fortunate to be a boarder there between 1955-1960 even though my family lived only a few miles away near Sharpthorne, a village 'much connected' with the Bluebell railway, until 1959.
The aforementioned year produced a very hot summer, aertex shirts and khaki shorts being the school dress code I seem to recall. The main building, originally built as a private mansion, was a grand stone house of spacious proportion standing on a rise overlooking the Weir Wood Reservoir. The grounds were extensive, including a large wood fringed by a small lake.
This was in halcyon days when computers (generally) didn't exist of course and life seemed so much simpler and uncomplicated. In some ways the late 50s was a period of 'making do', bearing in mind we were all still... Read more
