Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School
Contents
Foundation and Ongoing Construction
Main School Building
As every year 7 student at BRGS learns in their earliest history lessons, BRGS was founded at its current site in 1912, opening to its first intake in 1913, when the Newchurch Grammar School moved. It was built at a cost of £30,000 and was made to house 362 students, with rooms for teaching trades such as weaving, spinning, plumbing and boot and shoe making. Originally opened as Bacup and Rawtenstall Secondary School, it did not adopt the present title and logo until 1928. Geography students taking a trip around Waterfoot learn that it is made of the same type and age of stone as most of the old parts of Waterfoot. It has held many thousands of students over the years, with increasing numbers in recent years, resulting in an ongoing need for construction work. Since 1913, many sections have been added to the school; the year of construction of any part can be ascertained by looking at the year number on each of the copper drainpipe tops in the offending section of school for the old sections, and the uPVC tops in more recent constructions.
Temporary Construction
The school also plays host to a number of Temporary Classrooms, such as rooms 57 and 58 - the so called "English Block", which used to be music rooms (in the late 1960s). A new set of six Temporary Classrooms, T 1-6, now occupy old car parking areas, and are projected by some estimates to have a shelf life of about a century, but are expected still to be here in two.
Rooms 64 and 65 are expected to be here in the long haul due to the permanent construction work which has gone on around them to make access easier and "safer", though it is not unknown for students to sprain feet walking down the slope from the said rooms.
Extensions
Permanent construction additions to the school have included the Extension Corridor, which has been the starting point for a number of new extensions, and leads now to the Newchurch Wing, construction finishing at the back end of 1999. The Art Block, completed in 1996, is now too small; the area where it began (currently the Music Department) is also too small to host its named teaching rooms, and the two will soon be amalgamated in a new Arts Department, which is likely to have as much trouble with planning permission as the Sports Hall. The Clark Building, built in 1990, holds the tiny school Library, and is generally used only for sixth form teaching.
The PE Department is in charge of many of the school's land and building assets, with a new £1m sports hall replacing the old gym, the Glen Playing fields away to the east of the school down the valley, the top field, with 200m running track, space for javelin throwing and rugby, and a long jump/triple jump pit. It also has the courts at the front of school (most often used by students on break times to use pent-up energy), and the large astro-turf pitch on the site of the old lower field.
