Coventry Telegraph Feature on Wyre Farm Camp School

I think some of this information came from this site. It's part of a feature on Coventry's Lost schools and Colleges by Lucy Lynch. Thanks Lucy.

"Coventry Boarding School

In the 1930s government ministers were worried about working class children living in cramped accommodation in polluted industrial cities.

The National Camps Corporation recommended setting up a series of boarding schools around the country to give children a chance to live in the countryside.

But soon after war broke out and only a few were ever finished. Coventry got one which was Wyre Farm Camp School in Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire.

By the time it was finished the Second World War had started and the first pupils were evacuees from the bombing.

In 1957 Coventry City Council’s education bosses took charge and the camp became Coventry Boarding School. Many of the children were from military families whose parents were serving abroad.

Among the memories pupils have are swimming in an unheated outdoor pool, long cross country runs through the hills and long walks to church every Sunday.

For many it was their first time away from home. Some cried and some tried to run away but with few buses and no trains for miles they didn’t get very far.

Once a month there would be a visiting day when relatives would arrive in a fleet of buses from Coventry. And once a week pupils were allowed into the village to spend their pocket money on sweets and cakes.

The school closed in the early 1980s. Coventry City Council bosses were funding most of the places and said it was too expensive to run, citing a high staff to pupil ratio. It is now a outdoor activity centre."

The full article can be viewed here - http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/coventry-warwickshires-lost-schools-colleges-7550478

Thanks to Charles Joyce for sending the actual cutting from the Coventry Telegraph