Convent High School. Grosvenor Road.

A Memory of Wrexham.

The school was in fact three buildings. The convent itself, the house next door and the main school in Gerald? Street. There was also a large prefab type building in the grounds that housed Sister Marie Claires Business Class and the Assembly Room. My memoires are of the smell of polish in the Convent, the silence. The top two forms were in this building. The Nuns chapel was here, the only time we were allowed in was to say a prayer before we entered the school certificate exam rooms!
Memories of Sister Salome veil allying, playing Hockey on the field, near to where Aston Hall was. As we shared this field with Grove Park Boys school we were at long last allowed to wear shorts for games instead of tucking our gym slips into our large brown knickers!
Thoughts of the terrifing Miss Costello (Latin and English) and tiny Sister Oswald who would rather let you help her make 'charity sale goods' than teach you music, in her room in the Grosvenor Road building.
These lovely 'Georgian' houses are now all gone to make room for a 1960's Tax office.


Added 14 June 2012

#236868

Comments & Feedback

Hi we lived in Wrexham in the Mid 60s as my father worked as a Doctor in the Meylor hospital . I remember Sister Ernastine she was lovely also a boy called Gareth Edwards My sister Deirdre was here for longer than me . Best Wishes to all we met on our way Calum wilson
As a boy, I was at the Covent School which housed students from St Mary's School during the rebuilding. I attended starting about 1970. I remember the school, the Chapel, the outbuildings. There was Mrs Edwards, Mr. King (Music), Miss King, some nun teacher who I never knew. I am very sad to see it gone, replaced by what looks like a government building. I have tonnes of memories of the old Convent.
I attended Wrexham Convent High School (later grammar school) for over ten years. It was, indeed, spread over three houses and the two teachers, two religious and one lay, who stay in the memory are Sister Oswald and Sister Salome and Miss MM Costello (known to one and all as Cossy).

Other came and went. I remember Sister Imelda (one time headmistress) with particular affection as I also remember the two nuns, Oswald and Salome.

Not always shining academically, we did have our own stars it must be said. A few girls married well - Joan Lloyd particularly - who just missed being a countess. And I always admired Joan Simons who had such a personality, such a presence. There were some budding ballerinas too and Anna Thomas won a place at the Royal Ballet School. Some went on to University - Marna Price, Shirin Gandhi and Sylvia Wakely among them - Marna became a journalist and made it to Fleet Street in London, Shirin taught locally I believe.
We had dancing lessons (as default) with Miss Vera Price, elocution lessons with Miss Betty Lowe and there was the lovely Olga who played the piano while we thumped around the room.

Now the bulldozers have reduced it all to memories - and the only concrete symbol left is a school board in the grounds of the Social Services office which is so weather-beaten that few are likely to know what it represents.
I remember Mr Wilson the surgeon at the Maelor. You lived in the house near the entrance. He had a ‘stiff’’ leg and he went to work in South Wales. Is he still alive? He was a really lovely man, so approachable and very caring about his patients. I too went to the Convent High School but I remember him when I was doing my nurse training. I also remember you and your sister. I lived in the nurses home on the other side of the road. Wonderful times but hard work in those days. Warm regards Margaret Taylor
Dear Joan Simons gone now. A lovely girl and friend from her first day at The Convent. She and her mother had been living in Ireland with family, whilst her father served with the 'Desert Rats' throughout the war. Joan arrived at school speaking only gaelic, but soon she was shining in class in every subject. A clever girl with a great personality, the most magnificent singing voice and I will always be grateful that she took a shy girl, who was scared of everything under her wing, making life fun. She was surely Uni material , but she met her beloved Dominic.
Does anybody remember - Jean Twiss, Pat Griffiths. Joan lloyd and cousin Alice?
I remember Jean Twiss very well. She was extremely clever at dressmaking,craft work and the like and a very confident and individual girl too. For some time she worked at a pottery in Llangollen (no doubt turning out some excellent pots) and later as an assistant matron at Ellesmere College in Shropshire. She was also a very dedicated member of the British Red Cross and a stalwart of the Wrexham branch whom she once represented at a Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace. Sadly, she died some years ago

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