Spring Vale Junior School
Here are some pictures of the old junior school before it was demolished. This is very much how it was when I was a young 'un and some interior shots can be found on the reunion page. The very well attended reunion took place on 22nd October 2005 and was organised by its alumni for anyone who attended before 1980.
The school is rebuilt using additional land from the defunct WMC site and it looks 'the business'. Demolition of part of the old school started late 2005 and the rebuilding work made progress through 2007. The new school was officially opened Monday 10th September 2007 by Penistone Mayor Joe Unsworth and Barnsley Mayor Len Picken with Headmistress Hilary Smith in attendance. Various children's favourites such as Scooby Doo and Jack Sparrow helped the event to go well with the children.
Around Spring Vale
This area is only fifteen
minutes walk from Penistone centre. The first picture is looking up Sheffield Road towards the school and shows the Britannia pub. Next to the pub but off the picture is Dave Bailey's Paint Spot, where you might have your car resprayed or touched up. Jackie's is another business by the pub. It is the only fancy dress hire shop for miles around. A side road, modelled on Beirut, leads down to the dumpit
site. It is often very busy at weekends.
The old railway bridge on Green Road looks down towards Spring Vale. It now carries the Trans-pennine trail but used to have the wonderful sulphurous smell of smoke from steam locomotives. Kids all walked to school in those days and four-wheel-drive vehicles were only for farms. At the other end of the bridge was the only working public gas lamp that I ever saw lit, with its clockwork timer wound up each week. This bridge has now sprouted traffic lights.
A large red-bricked housing estate sprouted up opposite 'Birdcage Walk' and near the bridge in recent years. 'Birdcage Walk' acquired its nickname from white-painted wooden railings that used to adorn every house. The sad and abandoned Springvale WMC has now been demolished. It was a thriving centre for all manner of entertainment, with bingo, live shows, line dancing, aerobics classes and disco nights but it has gone now. It seemed impossible for it to fail, but fail it did. Next is another view of the Brit looking back towards Penistone and then a shop that has been there for donkey's years, Hinchliff's family butcher.
Spring Vale Methodist Church is opposite the junior school and was built in 1927. The original "Tin Chapel" on this site was built in 1860. Have a look inside the Church on my 'Chapels' page. They don't like to call them chapels any more. That's why I do it. It is a personal website, you know.
