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Report - - St. Peter's college / Rainsford high school, Chelmsford, July 2014 | Other Sites | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - St. Peter's college / Rainsford high school, Chelmsford, July 2014

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slayaaaa

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Intro

Recently been researching the area and found little about the site, I was informed about the closure a while ago but didn't think anything of it until a few weeks ago. Then 20 minutes and a bit of research I found myself planning a visit.

The school

The school was made up of 5 separate main buildings and 3 other smaller buildings on Fox crescent including care takers office, a main building with a clock tower, 2 sixth form buildings and an extra science department. it specialised in performing arts.

History

St. peter's began life as Rainsford High school with the north building being built in 1939. It was a church of England voluntarily aided school situated in the North, North/west of Chelmsford.

Sixth form was later added (St. Peter's college) and a theatre was built for the drama department.

In the 1960's an extra science department building was added to the South of the main building, probably to help supply education to the growing population of youth in Chelmsford.

Closure

Gradually from the 1990's, the population of students began to decline as competition became fierce with the large schools in the area, Hylands, Chelmer valley high, St. John Payne and the boys county high.

Then as population declined, so did exam results, and towards 2006-2010 exam results fell to only 8% of students receiving A*-C's.

The police, OFSTED, and other contributing organisations began to be introduced to the community to help keep the place going. Results began creeping back up to an acceptable standard however this was not enough and students began to leave. Eventually in August 2011 the school closed it's doors for the last time.

A few news reports:

St Peter's College will 'work towards improving its GCSE results ' for 2010 (From Chelmsford Weekly News)

EXCLUSIVE: St Peter's College in Chelmsford to shut | Essex Chronicle

Amazingly the website for the school is still up, it includes news, homework, timetables and messages from the head teacher, Mr Kulvinder Cheema.

This can be found here:

St Peter's College: Home

The explore

Access was interesting... Obviously I won't go into detail but it was exactly easy!

Electricity is on and so are a lot of the lights!

Security was very strange. I essentially walked in front of them on multiple occasions, I even set of an alarm twice and almost walked into them as they were turning it off!

It is definitely a great site and I'm quite amazed no one has done it before or even mentioned it!

Unfortunately due to some random doors being locked and completely unavoidable throughout the building I was only able to get internal pictures of the North of the north building (drama hall, theatre, dance and music halls, storage and the north hall).

The clock tower was definitely the best part of the day.

The 1960's science department did look interesting but I had run out of time after spending 3 hours on the site to find access, my batteries were also running out!

I also managed to get in the caretakers office but didn't see it necessary to get into sixth, I could see from outside it was pretty empty and rather boring!

The photos

Again I still haven't managed to save up for a DSLR, so you'll all have to do with my dodgy pictures from a mobile phone! A second visit should definitely be done so I can document the rest of the site!

Externals of the main building

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Clock tower from the roof

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Inside the clock tower

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South of the school from the clock tower

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North of the school from the clock tower

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The North sports hall, gym. Unfortunately lights were on on only the right side of the hall.

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Storage room for chairs, tables etc.

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Music/practice rooms

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Drama hall and balcony

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Dance studio

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Front entrance

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Sixth form and the college buildings

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Caretaker's office, workshop

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Caretakers building in the foreground, the grey building is the science building

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Workshop

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Boiler room

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And finally a piano and some keys

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I apologise for the amount of photos, but it's a massive place and I only covered a fraction of it here. I took over 200 pics. If anyone wishes to see more pics, let me know!
 

Boomstick84

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
This looks like an interesting little wander!

Well done for ducking the security, sounds like they're pretty relaxed there :D You got some good shots aswell!

Nice to see something new and local to boot!

Thanks for sharing! :thumb
 

UrbanDuck

Authorised Trespasser
28DL Full Member
Looks like an amazing site, one I'll be adding to my list! I'm sure access to the other parts of the site will 'loosen' up over time! :)
 

krissigalores

Poison Ivy
28DL Full Member
It's great to see something new as above mentioned. You did a great job even if it was on a mobile!
 

slayaaaa

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Cheers for all the positive comments! I hope someone else gives it a go as well. To be honest I'm thinking of doing the rest some other time. Glad you all enjoyed the report.
 

bollydolly

28DL Member
28DL Member
Wow this is awesome to see. This was my competing school when I was in education. I'm only 19 so I know the school well.
You have balls for going in The Clock Tower though. Until about 2010ish, one of the doors in the actual tower was completely locked and no one actually had a key to it. Then it was open one day.
 

slayaaaa

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
So had a few revisits, one with Boomstick84 and Robg172, had a great time guys, really appreciate you coming along with me.

Thought I'd share a few more pics as a reply to my 1st report, don't want to flood the forum, no doubt Robg172 and Boomstick84 will post a report to! Looking forward to seeing their pics.

A bit more history/update too, one of the sixth blocks were used as a day care or something named Kids inspire after the building had closed, the building is now empty, so I assume they left!

Also, a few buildings to the South that once were part of the college are being renovated into Thrift wood college. (http://www.chelmsfordweeklynews.co.uk/news/9852439.School_to_expand_on_St_Peter_s_site/)

Anyway, here's a few more pics:

Rusty railing

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So this was onto of the science block, still inaccessible unfortunately.

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The library, Was a bit of fun getting in here!

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Interesting white board in a room I hadn't bee in before.

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Better look in the North hall, managed to get in this time.

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This was amazing, this plant is growing on concrete 100 or so feet above any soil!

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Some poor attempts at arson, Luckily they didn't catch on, probably due to not having a good enough oxygen supply.

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Inside hall murals.

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Nice external.

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Few of the trophies.

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And one more external.

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Nice site, I hope a few others can get along to see it! :thumb
 

Boomstick84

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Nice shots mate!

Thanks again for your help, was a great site and thoroughly enjoyed exploring it (even though my climbing skills need improvement :D). Will try and get a report up soon.

Looking forward to the next one! :thumb
 

WildBoyz

Is this the future?
28DL Full Member
Some decent shots there. I'm always keen on a nice close up of something :thumb

Come on Boomstick, looking forward to this report!
 

UrbanDuck

Authorised Trespasser
28DL Full Member
Thanks again mate for a great morning of exploring, credit for the site intel and putting up with our poor climbing skills. Some great photos there considering non-SLR well done. I will be putting a report up but not had the time yet! Looking forward to further adventures! :thumb
 

Cherry belle

28DL Member
28DL Member
The building next to the rusty railing was my day nursery until jan 2014 , we stayed there after the school closed in 2011 along with Kids Inspire and chelmsford model railway club who were housed on other parts of the site, there were just us 3 tenants on site for 3yrs along with the security team and it wasn't nice but our nursery carried on regardless and we along with the other tenants have now been re housed on the Thriftwood College site .We have many pics of our old nursery stored away . I believe our old building is being used by the security team as their base as it still has power n heating active
 

slayaaaa

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
The building next to the rusty railing was my day nursery until jan 2014 , we stayed there after the school closed in 2011 along with Kids Inspire and chelmsford model railway club who were housed on other parts of the site, there were just us 3 tenants on site for 3yrs along with the security team and it wasn't nice but our nursery carried on regardless and we along with the other tenants have now been re housed on the Thriftwood College site .We have many pics of our old nursery stored away . I believe our old building is being used by the security team as their base as it still has power n heating active

Thanks for the info, it's a shame the're actually renoating the site to the side. I'd love to see that 1930's building back in use, the clock tower is rather plain but I really love the look of it.
 
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