Charney Hall School, Grange-over-Sands

Many thanks to David Johnson for this latest post   Charney Hall School 1951 Staff: Nurse Goodwin, Messrs Vanderkist, Topham, Barbara Duncan, Maxwell Duncan, Raymond Hirst, Messrs Hopkins, Baker and Assistant Matron   Charney Hall Reflections - David R Johnson  -  1950 -1965 I arrived at CH September 1950, courtesy of my father’s acquaintance with Maxwell Duncan (WMD) at Pembroke College, Oxford, 1928/30. The Isle of Man to Grange-over-Sands (GOS) journey was an adventure – 4 hours boat from Douglas to Liverpool, transfer (sometimes on foot) from the Princess Landing Stage to Lime Street station, and train to Preston, where safety, personified as A.B.K McCullagh ( ABKM) or Philip Fawcett (PF), shepherded  us back to school.     Surprisingly I was not that homesick and usually got quite quickly into the rhythm of CH life, where the regulars, Hoppy, Topham, PF, WMD, ABKM and Raymond Hirst (RH) attempted to mould us callow youths into shape. Mr Fairc...

Many thanks for your contribution Chris! I have only just come across this centre for Charney Hall memories and am so happy to find news and reminiscences of people whose company and friendship I enjoyed in 1962/63 when I was a member of staff and i/c first team cricket and football for a year before going to Durham University. I first met John McCullagh when teaching at Dunchurch Winton Hall, a prep school (long since closed) outside Rugby where I taught for a year after leaving Repton. John was on the staff there. This was the start of a friendship that was to last until his death. He was kind and generous with a wicked sense of humour. We kept in touch for many years and he was held in much affection by my family whom he came to know well. At Charney he and I had rooms in the Lodge where it was absolutely freezing and John's warm sitting room was a most welcome haven. It was in his company and under his guidance that I came to know many of the pubs in the area, the foremost of w...

A Merry Christmas to all who may come across this blog! My painting this year is one perhaps reminiscent of those dense birch and hazel woods around the slopes of Hampsfell that we explored in our youth when at Charney Hall School. 

Post updated 22 June ‘25 : Citation for Medal of Freedom (Bronze Palm) Lieutenant-Colonel, The Honourable Arthur Adolph Baerlein CBE, Medal of Freedom with Bronze Palm. The family of Arthur Adolph Baerlein (b. 27 Nov 1886, d. 27 Jan 1966) (CH 1900-01) were ‘Manchester textile merchants, machine exporters, dealers in cotton and flax waste, shipping agents, converters, spinners and doublers’*. His grandfather Emanuel, originally from Furth, Bavaria had established a yarn merchants and his sons Max and Sigismund joined the business, initially operating from 18 Exchange Street, Salford. Baerleins also supplied their own Lancashire looms to the mills of East Lancashire and Manchester which were manufactured by Atherton Brothers of Preston. Max Baerlein married Emily Cohen from Rusholme in 1876. Their first house was The Limes, Eccles Old Road, Pendleton, Salford, where they started their family, and latterly The Grange in Withington where at one point in 1891 they employed 7 servants*. 1891...

Post updated 11 Feb 2025 -  E Rabagliati’s in CH Notes Nov 1917 with 2 additional articles Below are displayed extracts from Charney Hall Notes dated 1914 and 1927. They relate to information about old boys during WW1 (1914-1918).   I have the distinct feeling that this post will be greatly expanded in the near future… Charney Hall Notes 1927 In the 1914 edition the obituary of  Capt. T H Preston  (CH 1890-1894) who was killed in Flanders on 17 November 1914 records that he was the younger brother of Lieut. J S Preston (CH 1889?-1893) who died at Dewetsdorp, South Africa on 27 June 1900. During the years 1891/92 they were in the second set together at Charney Hall only 17 months separated them.  Sadly they died at the ages of 33 and 21 respectively.  James Bond - Ltn Colonel Cuthbert   Euan Charles Rabagliati  MC AFC Légion d’honneur (b. 1 Jan 1892 Bradford - d. 6 Jan 1978 Mouans-Sartous, France). In the 1911 England Census he was recorded as...

Louis’s original article in Cumbrian War Memorials provoked much discussion about Charney’s Memorial Hall and the possible whereabouts of the mythical WW1 memorial plaque.  Empathy is the last emotion that is bestowed upon the boys in a preparatory school who are miles away from family and home. We were all too much occupied with the struggle for our own survival! They say that competition is healthy - well we had plenty of that - in the classroom, on the playing fields, in the rifle range and in the school sports at the end of the Summer Term. Our parents saw a summary of the fruits of our labours neatly and concisely set out in our school reports - ‘could do much better’- can’t hit the ball to leg’- ‘doesn’t try hard enough’- ‘appears to be in a dream’- ‘is progressing well’…… what!! I suspect that empathy comes with love, with the responsibility of caring for a pet, with seeing others suffer, with having to deal with life’s experiences including death. Empathy is linked to the c...

 Rev : KS colour photo of Lake District National Park added - Jan 2024   The colour photograph (above) illustrates how close the Lake District was to Grange-over-Sands and Charney Hall. We were indeed fortunate as senior boys to be able to spend time there at the weekends and experience the magnificence of the landscape of one of Britain’s National Parks. At our impressionable age these forays into the unknown would stay with us for the rest of our lives and for some who made the North West their home, regular excursions would become part of the respite from an increasingly hectic life.         If you screw your eyes up really tight, you may be able to make out the former site of Charney Hall in the magical views over Morecambe Bay….😆