Returning for the OMA weekend again this year I decided that I must pluck up courage to visit the old school building at Ingoldisthorpe (the Rectory). Previously my wife had said “you can’t go nosing around in there, its someone’s private house now!”. I had read in a past Mitre, that the present owners were quite pleased to meet Old Michaelian's. I drove up the road and back again, there was someone there cutting the grass. I drove in and rung the bell in the old front porch. A smiling lady opened the door. “Hello, excuse me for being nosey, but I was at school here during the 60’s”. By this time her husband had driven round on his grass-cutting tractor. “Ah, you must be an Old Michaelian, they always come round at this time of year”. Golly I thought. How can they recognise us, are we marked in some way?! (No I wasn’t wearing a heavy mac, SORRY, mackintosh!) Anyway, they were very friendly especially as I could tell them so much about the building.
We went in the front porch. The inner glazed partition had gone. They are redecorating this area and other parts and the outline of it could be seen in the plaster. “There was a fireplace here” I said. “There” she said pointing to an air brick. ”That’s “Henry Taylor’s toilet” on the upper landing”(!) How did she know that?! Someone has been here before. Yes of course they have. She produced a visitors book but there are only a few names in it. “That door wasn’t there, it would have led into the side of the boys toilets”. Well, talk about transformation. The boys and girls toilets had been knocked into one and it was now their kitchen. The kitchen as we knew it is their living room and the scullery at the moment is still being decorated. I told them about the horrendous electrical installation in reach of the sinks. The electricity board were quite interested in the consumer unit and other items when it was rewired. Something for their museum I think!
“How is the floor here?” I enquired, tapping it knowing that it had collapsed when I was here. “It had a vaulted ceiling”. Well, we went down into the cellar. The last time I ventured there, it was knee-deep in water and heavy macs and other rubbish were floating around!! Yes, part of the vault had been replaced with iron bars and concrete. “Do you have trouble with it flooding?” I ventured. “No we have sorted out the drains in the yard. What was the yard made of? because we have found under the earth and gravel the original square cobbles of the stable-yard” The cloakrooms in the yard have long been converted into a dwelling. The conservatory at the back is still there.
The passage way downstairs and upstairs is blocked off halfway in (to them) as it is part of the other flat. This seemed most odd to anyone who had previously had the run of the building. They did have use of the top dinning room. This was also stripped and being prepared for decorating. The partition walls have all been closed up. However, of interest to me was that on one wall the original bright yellow paint
that most of the whole place used to be still survived. We also found it on a section of skirting board upstairs above the scullery. Whilst upstairs I found my first dormitory, (next to where Chris White’s room was – later sixth form), that was to become the fifth form when we moved back to Ingoldisthorpe from Hunstanton. “That door is in the wrong place.” We found where it used to be at the other end of the wall.
I showed them my photos. “Ah” she said to her young son, ”there is that green thing” pointing to the flagpole. Sure enough, on the front lawn the flagpole stanchion was still there. “What was over there” she said pointing to an area under the trees adjacent to the road. “We were digging there and met concrete a few inches down”. “Ah” said I, ”that would have been the garage where the lawn mowers and other things were kept” “What do you know about a well?” asked her husband. A well?? That was a new one on me. He had been told that somewhere at the front near the wall was a well that was covered over. His wife also mentioned a manhole cover with a big arch inside. This was a mystery too, but thinking about it later, it might have been a soak- away that predated the main drainage. (Or was this something to do with tales of a secret passage between the rectory and the church?)
There were other little features of architectural interest that we talked about as well as some of the things that we got up to!
I would like to say thank you to Nick and Katie Redwood for showing me around their part of the building.

Chris Gibbs