Farnworth Grammar School

All Gone!

Photographs by Elsie Entwistle (now Elsie Hodgkiss)

A few months ago I was pleased to publish some nostalgic photographs showing the remaining traces of the school's sports field taken by Arnold Cragg and Elsie Entwistle, who was the School's last secretary.

Elsie has recently been out with her camera once again, this time to take pictures of the area around the school itself.

As a long-term FGS exile, I found Elsie's photographs fascinating. I feel sure that other members of the Farnworth Grammar School diaspora will agree.

Elsie's first photograph shows the front of the apartment building that now stands where the school once stood (not exactly, apparently; the apartments are closer to Bolton Rd — roughly where the tennis courts were).
 

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The next photograph, taken from Bolton Road, shows the gate pillars of the girls' entrance as-was...
 

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...and this one shows where the boys' entrance in Bentley Street used to be.
 

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These houses are at the junction of Bentley Street and Bridgeman Street, where the school gymnasium stood.
 

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This is Paisley Park, a recent development built on the site of one of the old spinning mills in Gladstone Road (later de Havilland Guided Weapons when I worked there briefly in 1954). Farnworth Park is just behind the homes in the distance.
 

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This one was taken from the same spot in Gladstone Road but looking towards Bolton Road.
 

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The next one was taken from Gladstone Road looking towards Egerton Street, the Park Inn and St. Thomas's school (part of which may become a mosque, so it is said). Egerton Street is now one-way towards Moses Gate.
 

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This was the school's back entrance in Spring Street. (I don't think I ever noticed that the school had a back entrance)
 

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Finally, this is unmistakeably the junction at Moses Gate. It doesn't seem to have changed much, except that it's now a great deal cleaner and looks much less cluttered (click here for pictures of the same scene in the 1930s)
 

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