Winckley Square

Winckley Square is situated near the centre of Preston, Lancashire, England, at the west end of Avenham. It lies between Avenham Park and Preston's main street of Fishergate.

The square was built from 1801, around Town End Field owned by Thomas Winckley, as an exclusive residential area for the town's gentry. It is now occupied mostly by insurance, legal and other business offices, although some residential developments have recently been made. The square's gardens, now an open public park, originally consisted of private plots, each owned by a resident. [Sartin, p.43] [Hunt, p.173] [Garlington, p.10] A statue of Sir Robert Peel stands on one side of the central gardens opposite Cross Street, erected in 1852. ["History" > "Peel Statue" at [http://www.winckleysquare.org.uk Winckley Square] accessed 11 December 2007]

An Italian-style villa was built in 1850 on the south corner of Cross Street (number 11), which was later used as a County Court office from the 1940s. It was demolished in 1969. On the opposite corner (number 10) was the "Winckley Club", a gentlemen's club, and next to it, in Cross Street, the "Literary and Philosophical Institution" (later called "Dr Shepherd's Library and Museum"), both built in 1846 and both now demolished. [Garlington, p.13] [Hunt, pp.173–175]

chools

Winckley Square has been the home of several schools.

Preston Grammar School

Preston Grammar School dated back to the 15th century. In 1841 it moved to new premises in Cross Street next to the Philosophical Institution. In 1913 it relocated to Moor Park, and closed in 1967. [Garlington, p.72] [Hunt, p.175]

Preston High School

Preston High School for Girls once occupied 5 Winckley Square. It was superseded in 1907 by the Park School for Girls, which educated younger girls in Winckley Square and older girls in Moor Park Avenue. It closed in 1967. [Garlington, p.73]

Preston Catholic College

Preston Catholic College was a Jesuit school for boys, which began in 1865 in a house in Mount Pleasant (a narrow passage between the Square and Mount Street). In 1879 it moved to 29 Winckley Square and expanded over the next century until, at its peak of 915 pupils in 1970 ["Preston Catholic College Magazine", 143, January 1973, p.15] , it occupied the whole of the west side of the square from the northwest corner (number 34) as far south as Garden Street (number 25), with the exception of numbers 29 to 32. Classrooms, science laboratories and a swimming pool were built along neighbouring Mount Street in the 1930s. A gymnasium in Garden Street opened in 1970. The college also possessed extensive playing fields one mile (1½ km) south of the college, to which boys walked via the Old Tram Road.

The introduction of comprehensive schools in Lancashire forced the school to stop admitting under-16 pupils from 1978. In that year, its sixth form merged with the sixth forms of the other two Catholic grammar schools in Preston, namely Winckley Square Convent School and Lark Hill House School, to form Cardinal Newman College. Initially the Winckley Square sites continued to be used, but by 1986 the new college was concentrated at the Lark Hill site. [Garlington, pp.76–77] [Sartin, p.42] Some of the Mount Street buildings have been demolished. The buildings on Winckley Square are used as offices. However the gymnasium and playing fields are still used by Newman College. A blue plaque commemorates the college at its original entrance, number 34.

Alumni include television soccer pundit Mark Lawrenson [Ross, D. (2002) [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20020527/ai_n12618173 "Mark Lawrenson; Confessions of a soccer"] , "The Independent", London, 27 May 2002, accessed online 27 November 2007] [Jones, M. (2004), [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4161/is_20040523/ai_n12895270 "Exclusive: My Catholic School Hell by Lawro"] , "Sunday Mirror", London, 23 May 2004, accessed online 27 November 2007] and Chief Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Gregory Doran. [ [http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/stratfordians/stdorgr.htm "Gregory Doran"] in "A Dictionary of the RSC" by Simon Trowbridge, accessed 27 November 2007] [ [http://www.rsc.org.uk/othello/current/director.html "Othello: The Director"] on the "RSC" website, accessed 27 November 2007] The 1950s footballer Eddy Brown taught at the school after his retirement from the game. [ [http://www.lep.co.uk/ViewArticle.aspx?SectionID=75&articleid=559050 "The Big Interview: Eddy Brown"] , "Lancashire Evening Post", Preston, 14 July 2003, accessed 13 July 2007]

Winckley Square Convent School

In 1875, the Society of the Holy Child Jesus formed a girls' convent school from the merger of its three convent schools, St. Walburge's of 1853, St Mary's of 1871 and English Martyr's of 1871. The new school was at 23 Winckley Square, the former home of Thomas Batty Addison, once the Recorder of Preston. As the school grew, it came to fill the whole block between the streets of East Cliff and Garden Street, reaching a peak of 850 pupils in 1962. In 1978 it suffered the same fate as the neighbouring Catholic College, the site closing in 1981. The buildings are now used as a restaurant and offices. [Garlington, pp.80–84]

Notes

References

* Garlington, J. (1995, new edition 2006), "Images of England: Preston", [http://www.nonsuch-publishing.com Nonsuch Publishing] , Stroud, ISBN 1-84588-307-1
* Hunt, D. (2003), "The Wharncliffe Companion to Preston — An A to Z of Local History", [http://www.wharncliffebooks.co.uk Wharncliffe Books, Barnsley] , ISBN 1-903425-79-4.
* Sartin, S. (2002), "Preston in Focus", Landy Publishing, Blackpool, ISBN 1 872895 59 X

External links

* [http://www.winckleysquare.org.uk Winckley Square]