http://www.keighleynews.co.uk/news/news_keighley/10806775.Keighley_s_Oakbank_School_secures___16m_for_rebuilding/

The building was virtually brand new when I was last there!

You just beat me to posting that link !
Yes it was built starting late 1962 and into 1963/4, and opened at Easter 1964, I just had two terms there and left at Christmas as I had secured an unconditional Uni place for following year. Hard to realise its 50 years ago.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-64

Current location (optional) Wirral

Yet the old K.B.G.S. building is still standing and I dare bet it is in better condition than Oakbank. Had a letter published in the K.N. 2 weeks ago about the future of the old building.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1959-66

Current location (optional) HAWORTH

So what's going to happen to the old building on North Street?

I didn't like the comment about 'part of it is Victorian'! It's only the admin section after all!

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1959 to 1966

Current location (optional) Shoreham-By-Sea

I was told when quite small that the old Oakbank House was a place naughty boys were sent!

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-64

Current location (optional) Wirral

Quote 'Oakbank House was built as a solid, Victorian house in 1872. Mr John Haggas moved from Oakworth with his growing family to his large estates which overlooked his mills at Ingrow. The Haggas family left Oakbank at the beginning of the Second World War and the house was used by evacuated families. The Oakbank House and estates were bought by Keighley Council in 1946.'

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-64

Current location (optional) Wirral

Oakbank was also used for a short while by Keighley Sea Cadet Corps, after they left Spring Gardens Lane where they used a Sunday school, and before they moved up to the Institute in Cross Roads. This would have been late 40s or early 50s. I think they moved to Cross Roads about 1951 or 52. I haven't heard anything of the Sea Cadets in years. I hope that they have survived.Cheers.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1947-51

Current location (optional) Auckland NZ

In my letter to the K.N.I stated that the £4:5million K.N.Bfd.Council should demolish the `buildings and basically get their money back by re-cycling the materials and then develop the site on a mix of high quality, social and sheltered housing now not in a decade`s time.Knowing Bfd Council being worse than a chocolate fireguard with regards to forward thinking.They will probably drag their feet that much that apathy will continue to rule. The buildings and the materials they contain will be past recyclability and therefore some-one will get the site at a knock-down price and as a result that person or organisation will make a financial killing.So will Keighlians be boverred? No doubt certain Councillors are already hoping this will happen! Also, I dare bet the "tired" Oakbank site will be sorted before the ones are in the centre of Kly!

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1959-66

Current location (optional) HAWORTH

I stated in the K.N. that Bradford Council paid £4:5 million K for the buildings. Who to I don`t know and was this some sort of paper transaction i.e. skullduggery as us mere mortals know nothing about!This I did n`t put in the paper!

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1959-66

Current location (optional) HAWORTH

One thing's for sure, if politicians of any kind are involved there will be feet dragging and much duggery of skull...

Fifty-four years ago – almost to the month – D.A.Peart, under the title “The Mechanics”, wrote this in The Keighlian” ……...

“Many people are already discussing our new school and we now have an idea of its size and appearance, but as we come nearer to this promised land too many of us are liable to speak slightingly of the building which has served the School so well for close on ninety years.”

He then launched into a personal appraisal of the various architectural styles used in public buildings in the previous two centuries and set Keighley Mechanics Institute in its context. He then produced this lengthy conclusion………
“Despite its numerous faults, our building still has much to commend it. It is the only impressive building in the town. It has a massive solidity and the dignity which goes with such ponderous construction. Despite its various architectural styles it has an artistic unity and, although much of the detail is somewhat coarse, the whole is not unpleasing. The Lord St. side and the cardboard textile wing are of later construction and are architecturally valueless. They were built under a mistaken conception that factories and schools served identical purposes; an idea which still manifests itself in some of the steel and glass boxes appearing today. The gravest disadvantages lie in the building’s situation, so that both learning and teaching go on amidst a barrage of noise, and the fact that it is shared by so many organisations, leaving visitors completely bemused; and for neither of these can we blame the building itself.”

I never saw the Oakbank school, close to or from within. Its one appeal (from over the wall) was that it had its games fields to hand. My memories of KBGS will always be cloaked in “t’Mechanics” with its corridors of classrooms scattered about the building on many levels and its several staircases - all of which lent themselves to the growth and spread of legendary mischief.

If he were a former pupil, the Bard would have had the perfect setting for a comitragedy or a tragicomedy, depending on his “O”Level results. On occasions, I could see the hand of Brian, Lord Rix, in some of the outcomes.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1952-60

Current location (optional) Nirvana

Thanks for that, Terry. I never knew Peart but there is little here with which I would take issue. Admittedly, at the age of 11, I could make no judgements about our old school's architectural values, but I know that when I got there I found it gracious, certainly awe-inspiring. In spite of the drawbacks Peart reminds us of, the education we received there was much more than adequate and by far superior to what kids in a great majority of schools receive today.

Sentimentalism and nostalgia tell me the building should not be torn down (and not only for fear of what might replace it) but sadly, it seems inadequate for any identifiable function in today's world, and, I fear, will disappear sooner or later. It was one of the few buildings which, in my day, gave the town a recognisable identity, which it lost in the late sixties when the centre of the town was ripped out and the characterless, bog-standard shopping centre and covered market were dumped in its place. The removal of the old school and former Mechanics Institute would be very much in keeping with that earlier vandalism! And why not get rid of the Library whilst we're at it?

Doug

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1951-58

Kly is not Kly anymore . The rot started with new development in the 60`s and the move to Oakbank . In my opinion,the old K.B.G.S.should have been kept but due to the forward march of the"onwards and upwards"brigade one now finds Kly is a former shadow of itself!It is true to say that old boys lived through its halcyon days.So once the "heart" is ripped out of this town its character will definitely change forever and its link with the past will go.But that is progress. Is it?

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1959-66

Current location (optional) HAWORTH

Ingrow St. John's CC played for a number of years at a field at the bottom end of the site. Presumably they rented it from the local authority.Were they there before 1946 renting it from Haggas', and did they move to the site near Slingsby's foundry when the site was redeveloped for KBGS, or had they already moved?

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1958-65

Current location (optional) Leeds

I am fairly sure Ing St Johns CC were there for at least the summer of 1964, maybe 1965 as well , but beyond that I dont know.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-64

Current location (optional) Wirral

Better ask David Boddy rather than speculate.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1959 to 1966

Current location (optional) Shoreham-by-Sea

It beggars belief that the Victorians could build fine public buildings which showed such pride in the municipality. What is really needed in the case of the Mechanics , the Old School , and most of all the Clock Tower, is a campaign for the full restoration of them all. After all the most significant views of Keighley always show the Square and the old Clock Tower. Its the first thing that comes to mind .What a project that would be .

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 43-46

Current location (optional) Tasmania

Mike`s suggestion is right. But will the powers that be in Bfd. concur? I think not.No doubt whatever happens to the site in the future will be wrong for KLY.as we knew it.As they say "onwards and upwards" but in the case of this town will this be the way forward?

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1959-66

Current location (optional) HAWORTH

Ingrow St Johns did in fact play cricket in the bottom field at Oakbank.
I do believe that Pecy Hardacre the secretary and treasurer for many years advised the council to let ISJCC stay there. ISJCC would maintain the ground and keep it fit for school games. Percy also advised that the ground was riddled with springs and if dug up it would be years before it could be sorted. And so it was the fields were waterlogged for many years. So we moved to Marriner Road where we staid for many years before moving to Morton.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1959-1964

Current location (optional) KEIGHLEY

Percy Hardacre - don't know where he lived but he used to walk past the back of our house regularly. It seemed that everyone knew Percy and, to me as a young lad, he seemed to be at least 75 years old. Was he a universally known Keighley character or was it just that he was significant in the world I inhabited?

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1958-65

Current location (optional) Leeds

Shaun I think he lived down Foster Road. Wasn't he League Secretary as well as being associated with Ingrow St Johns?

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-64

Current location (optional) Wirral

A photograph of Percy Hardacre appears on our website; if you click on 'Cricket', then '1958' then 'Keighley Cup Winners', which will show Percy standing extreme right of picture, with his son, Henry, alongside. There's someone on the back row that looks a bit like me, with hair!!

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1945-50

Current location (optional) Keighley

Hi Shaun
Percy Hardacre was "Mr Cricket".
I don't know if the are still there but when Percy died his son Henry donated all Percy's record books of results ect from the Keighley League and the West Bradford league to Keighley reference library. Percy lived at 25 Foster Road Ingrow. He was a founder member of Ingrow St Johns' C.C. when they reformed in 1928.Percy and his good friend George Bown found the old bag of cricket gear in Ingrow St Johns' Church and decided to reform the club.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1959-1964

Current location (optional) KEIGHLEY

I went out to open bat for ISJCC and Percy was umpire. I looked up to take my guard and said" leg and middle Percy please" First ball thudded into my pad well outside off stump and well forward. Percy gave out straight away. As I passed him he said 'tell the others to call me Umpire not Percy/.

I suspect that it was his terrific enthusiasm for cricket across the grades that made Percy such a well known figure. He seemed to be at all the matches I attended be it 3rd division (Juniors) which is where I first became aware of him, or the seconds and of course the first teams, I was scorer for Cross Roads 1st X1 for a while! He was a good citizen by any standards. I was only 17 when I left home and yet I felt that I knew Percy. I didn't of course, but that was his nature.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 1947-51

Current location (optional) Auckland NZ