Report - Crookham Court School, Newbury, Berkshire - August 2013

Seffy · Aug 26, 2013

Crookham Court School/Crookham Manor, Newbury, Berkshire

Seffyboy, whodareswins and END-PROC.

Some history. There is some interesting stuff for this one...

Crookham Court stands on the former site of Crookham manor house, built around the start of 14th century and destroyed in 1543, and subsequently Crookham House which was demolished around 1850. The construction of the current building started around this time and continued in two more phases over the next fifty years.
It’s served several purposes such as a manor house, a junior school and a school for children of people serving at Greenham Common. It was abandoned for some time after the US Air Force left the area and purchased in 1961 when it was used as a boarding school until 1990, after which point it was apparently used as apartments (although this isn’t too obvious from looking at the place) and has been abandoned since 2007.
In 1988 there was a well-publicised case of child abuse by several members of staff which was covered on Esther Rantzen’s show That’s Life. This had apparently been going on for thirty years but it was only when the headmaster Mr. Gold joined the school in 1987 that it was discovered and reported. Three were convicted, including the principal who was the owner of the building. Over twenty years later the teacher who had been set free was also convicted when another victim came forward; he has tried appealing but been denied.

I know this place has literally been done to death recently, but after visiting, I can see why. In my opinion, it really is rather special this place, and very unique.

We'd been talking about doing it for a few months now, and when we realised how close to the M4 it is, made the effort to make a detour and see it. There was a strong temptation to park right outside it, being the lazy person I am, but decided against it in the end. Instead we parked nearby, after driving down lanes which I'm fairly sure were 'paths' not 'roads'..

We had the pleasure of bumping into a few more explorers whilst there, one of which we startled just as much as he did us, when he saw us. To the other three girls we bumped into a few times inside, we were the weird looking trio you bumped into