One from last year that I really wasn't expecting to be as good as it was. I had spotted this small Victorian primary school whilst heading back from another exploring trip earlier in the year however the daylight had almost vanished so I marked it on my map and put it aside for another day. On a roadtrip with @Landie_Man later in the year I managed to see it, and I am really rather glad I did. It's location right on a main arterial route between Swansea and Carmarthen, just south of the town of Cross Hands in the small hamlet of Cwmgwili made me think it'd be absolutely ruined and we'd spend at most ten minutes shooting a destroyed school, however once over the wall and inside it became apparent that the entire school was almost totally untouched, and filled with wonderful natural decay. We spent nearly an hour shooting the entire building and only left when it became too dark to see properly, honestly I couldn't quite believe a building on such a busy road had faired so well, especially since it closed sometime between 2005 and 2010 - one of about 40 rural small schools that were set to be closed or merged around South Wales in that time.
I can't really find much history on it, much like many rural small schools it was simply just another one built in the late Victorian period for a small number of pupils in the surrounding villages. It contained two large classrooms, a larger room with a stage which looked to be the assembly hall/dining room and a small kitchen, with the original Victorian outside toilet block still located outside in the playground. The entire building looked to have been completely unmodernised throughout it's entire lifespan other than the addition of strip lighting and double glazing. It really was a wonderful example of true natural decay that I never expected to stumble across in a small school in Wales directly off a dual carriageway.
Two of my friends went past it whilst in Wales the other day and gave me the news that it's now got scaffolding up around it and apparent renovation work going on, there were people on site busy working away so it seems it's now getting a new lease of life.
Thanks for looking
I can't really find much history on it, much like many rural small schools it was simply just another one built in the late Victorian period for a small number of pupils in the surrounding villages. It contained two large classrooms, a larger room with a stage which looked to be the assembly hall/dining room and a small kitchen, with the original Victorian outside toilet block still located outside in the playground. The entire building looked to have been completely unmodernised throughout it's entire lifespan other than the addition of strip lighting and double glazing. It really was a wonderful example of true natural decay that I never expected to stumble across in a small school in Wales directly off a dual carriageway.
Two of my friends went past it whilst in Wales the other day and gave me the news that it's now got scaffolding up around it and apparent renovation work going on, there were people on site busy working away so it seems it's now getting a new lease of life.
Thanks for looking
