Report - Haslemere Prep School - Haslemere - February 2022

[LSUrbex Exploration]

Haslemere Prep School (Revisit 2022)

History

This abandoned building is an old manor-turned school, sat on a hill, towering over a nice residential area in Surrey. The house was built in 1899 and was extended in the 1950s when it was converted into a preparatory school. The school had been extended again more recently before the site closed completely in 2016. This was due to decreasing numbers of students and increasing running costs.
The local council rejected planning permission in 2019. This was on the grounds that the original building was designed by a local architect and his work should be preserved. However, recently developers have been granted permission to build 6 houses and 14 flats on the site.

Explore

Haslemere Prep School is in my home town so visits here are quite often, but less and less recently because the school is in a terrible state now due to vandalism and graffiti.
From what was once a beautiful building to nothing more than a rotting decayed bombsite but pictures always turn out fairly decent!
There's not really much to say anymore about the school other than its changed dramatically over the past 2-3 years, someone keeps trying to keep the vandals out but there's always a new opening to the building, through a smashed window or a hole in the wall, it's always easy access which is a plus but sad to see the school in this state now.

 

[HughieD]

Well trashed but nicely photographed...

 

[Bikin Glynn]

Nicely captured, I cant believe how this one is so wrecked, its strange as its a nice area.
Access is fun assuming its the same as when I done it

 

[Calamity Jane]

Nicely covered. Its definitely changed through out the years. Some nice decay around. The architecture is really quite nice, looking beyond the modern and trashed.

 

[LSUrbex Exploration]

Well trashed but nicely photographed...

Appreciate it

 

[LSUrbex Exploration]

Nicely captured, I cant believe how this one is so wrecked, its strange as its a nice area.
Access is fun assuming its the same as when I done it

Need a ladder for access now, I can imagine you may have gone through the window on the bottom floor?

 

[Bikin Glynn]

Need a ladder for access now, I can imagine you may have gone through the window on the bottom floor?

No it was a ladder job for us too, but was very precarious lol

 

[Look-Whos-Stalking]

Hey LSUrbex Exploration,

I just wanted to say how fascinated I was to find this. I was a pupil at The Heights (as the school was nicknamed) from the late 80s to early 90s and although there's a whole 'new' wing that didn't exist when I was there, there's plenty in your photographs I do know well including two photos of my 6th form classrooms. Fascinating to have seen it fall into such disrepair after apparently it's existance had become untenable

 

[LSUrbex Exploration]

Hey LSUrbex Exploration,

I just wanted to say how fascinated I was to find this. I was a pupil at The Heights (as the school was nicknamed) from the late 80s to early 90s and although there's a whole 'new' wing that didn't exist when I was there, there's plenty in your photographs I do know well including two photos of my 6th form classrooms. Fascinating to have seen it fall into such disrepair after apparently it's existance had become untenable

Thankyou, I've lived in haslemere for 30 years and used to play football at the recreation ground, seeing the school in disrepair and in an awful state is really sad

 

[Discover.re]

Well-written intro, it looks a bit familiar... https://discover.re/uk-urban-exploration/abandoned-preparatory-school/

 

[LSUrbex Exploration]

Well-written intro, it looks a bit familiar... https://discover.re/uk-urban-exploration/abandoned-preparatory-school/

Have to find history somewhere I'm afraid

 

[onetimeonlypost89]

I was a pupil at the school during the mid to late 90's so seeing the school in this state and hearing that flats and houses will be built there (likely meaning most of it being torn down) is somewhat upsetting. Some weird, wonderful and wacky memories there ranging from meeting some of my oldest friends to even taking a baseball bat to the head (nothing too dramatic. just another kid being clumsy and the school staff looked after me really well). As one of the other users posted, the school was indeed known locally as 'The Heights'. For those approximately interested in the layout of the school, I still vaguely remember parts of it.


At the front of the school was the lower tennis court (seen in Photo 1 of this thread); not much to say about this other than I remember a school boy naively believing he could jump over the tennis net, failing and cracking his tooth on the tarmac. Photo 1 from this thread shows the main building (on the right) and the new building (on the left). I remember the new building even being built and it already being open around the time I was hit with the baseball bat so that must have been built around the mid 90s if my memory serves me right. At the time I remember everyone being really impressed with it and the Headmaster at the time (Mr Morrison) being very popular. The school was arguably at its peak then (I will go into more detail later on this).

As you entered the entrance of the main building, the Headmaster's office was the first on the left. There second room on the left was a sort of large board room which was mainly used by kids waiting for their parents to pick them up or for the board meetings. I remember there always being a large table in there with what at the time seemed to be a huge vase with a ton of flowers in it and the most stereotypical large 90's TV. As you go through the entrance of the main building, the first room on the right was the Reception area and where you'd go if you had any medical issues.

To get to the main hall, from the main entrance of the main building you'd stay on the ground floor, go straight (past the stairs) until you reached a corridor and turn right. You'd have a set of old sinks on your left at this point which were used by the school boys to wash their hands before we had lunch. With the sinks on your left at this point, the school kitchen was to the right through a set of doors (where pupils weren't allowed to go obviously). Continuing straight, you'd reach the main hall where everything from assembly, to lunch to indoor sports (when it was raining outside) would take place.

If I remember correctly, to gain access to the new building there were two corridors (one upstairs and one downstairs) joining it to the main building. Nothing much to say about the new building other than looking back it being very 90s. I remember at the time being mighty impressed with the toilets and classrooms...which in hindsight is rather pathetic as they were just rooms. I remember as soon as it was built, one of the teachers they situated there was a wonderful elderly teacher called Mrs Creamer (who must sadly long have since passed away).

I can't recall exactly how to get to the Deputy Headmaster's office but I do recall it being in the main building at the top and having to go up a very narrow set of stairs to reach it.

Upstairs from the main building was slightly chaotic if I recall in as much as it seemed to be a the main building with basically a ton of attachments to it, so here we go. As you go up the stairs, if you turned left, you'd reach a large classroom which was used for a variety of subjects. If you continued pretty much straight on, you'd enter the new building. If you turned right at the top of the stairs, you'd reach a corridor leading to the wood panelled building (show top right in the attached ariel photo). There were other rooms in the main building but I can't for the life of me remember them or the layout (in fairness, this is going back about 25 years).

As you reached the wood panelled building, if you turned left then you would come to several classrooms (I believe 4). Definitely cheaply constructed buildings as I remember them always being fairly drafty during winter and the teachers having to crank up the heating to make sure all the pupils were nice and toasty. Alternatively, as you reach the wooden building from that corridor, if you went straight ahead, this was the Design and Technology room and the first time I used things like a glue gun and hacksaw.

Shown in the attached photo, there's a building to the top right. This was the art and music building. As you went through the door for this building, the music room was to the left and around the corner to the right was the art room.

Not shown in these photos (as far as I can tell) was the upper tennis court which was used for a variety of things. This was basically situated just up out of the frame to the top of the photo I have attached. There were some of those portacabins which were one of those stereotypical 'temporary installations which turned into a permanent one'. From memory I think there were 2 or 3 of them and they were situated just off frame of the attached photo to the upper right, just next to the upper tennis courts. The portacabins were mainly used for Geography (if I remember correctly, the teacher at the time was ironically called Mr Hill) and History.

As for the school shutting down, if I'm honest, I'm not totally surprised that it ended up going that way. For most of my duration at the school, there was a Headmaster by the name of Mr Morrison. He was utterly fantastic with both the parents and the kids and really built the school up a lot during his time there. At one point the school had too many pupils and there was talk of further expansion. He had frequent talks with parents and made sure they all knew his door was always open. He always spoke very highly of the teachers. There was also a reward system in place for pupils whereby if we did well and got a set of stars (10 if I recall correctly), we'd go to the Headmaster's office to sign a book and be given a sweet. It was a really basic system but was very popular with the pupils and parents alike as it seemed to really help promote hard work and good behaviour. At the end of the term, pupils with their name in the book the most would receive rewards.

The downfall of the school in my opinion started with the ousting of Mr Morrison. There was basically an insurrection from half the teachers who made some pretty serious claims. Without going in to too much detail, I personally believe the truth was halfway between nothing and what they were claiming, but it really wasn't a problem and certainly not something worthy of his being ousted. The Deputy Head took over (it was no secret among the parents that he'd had his eye on the job for years) and Mr Morrison being outed proved massively unpopular with a great number of parents who immediately withdrew their children from the school. My parents held on for another a while longer but ultimately decided to pull me out when I was 11 - which some other parents decided to do with their children so we could set the entrance exams for some of the other schools. The school haemorrhaged pupils fairly rapidly because of this over a 2-3 year window and I don't think ever recovered. After that, building and expansion plans were scrapped overnight and it was just a steady decline in numbers whilst the school desperately tried to survive.

All a bit of a tragic end to an otherwise pretty amazing school.

 

[Charlie Hind]

Hi there

I attended this school from 2004-2008 and like you have so many memories of the heights that will live with me forever. I always remember the deputy head had a room in the attic sounds a bit dodgy I know which hasn’t appeared in any of these photos doing the rounds I doubt access is possible to that high up now. The portar cabin out back used to be the music block and there was sheds were we used to leave our kit before playing rugby i presume they burnt down in the fire. Sad to see the school in this way but it was always a bit rustic the school and the way it was run it was a bit of a bodge job but thats what made it what it was. Crazy to see how it literally was just one day abandoned after i left.
If any of you explorers go down to the white horse before for a drink your bound to find Mr larkin an ex teacher around who will give you a better insight into the buildings.

Also ollie pope Englands number 3 batsmen currently for the test team was in the year below me there.

I might go and have a look one day soon but wont have the nerve to go inside.

 

[UEoli]

I heard it's being turned into something, can someone confirm if that's true?