EPW045018 ENGLAND (1934). Besford Court and surrounding countryside, Besford, 1934

Besford Court.



Grade 2* - English Heritage Building ID: 442009

Early C16 timber frame and plaster on stone foundations. A regular 2-storey block with central moulded wood arched gateway containing original studded door. Substantial stone wings of 1912 in "Tudor" style.



Referred to as a "school" and as a "hospital" both terms are correct. The old description was lacking in modern political correctness, and perhaps charity - "Welfare home for mentally-defective Catholic children, restricted to feeble-minded boys from the ages of about seven to twenty-one. "



In 1940 it was referred to as "Besford Court Mental Welfare Hospital" with the head quoted as saying he had "pride to see what were once considered hopeless misfits transformed into fully trained craftsmen maintaining positions of merit and trust in the industrial world."



The building and estate remnant was sold to George Noble in 1910, he demolished the Georgian wing, retained the Elizabethan core (Timber framed), and added a gothic Tudor style courtyard. He did not occupy the greatly enlarged property- never occupied as intended as a single dwelling. It was sold, incomplete, to a school,



The school opened in 1917. The first child was Lewis Clark. Girls were only accepted in the very earliest years and then from 1982.



The school was a Catholic operated school (Besford was the first Shrine to St. Theresa in Britain) and some boys later reported rather strictly enforced rules however there were initially school guidlines, unusual in their day:

"Physical Punishment was Banned. This against a national background of great rigidity. Corporal punishment was the norm in most schools, parents regarded clouting their children as a right, and society generally looked upon physical pain as bringing an instant improvement in the conduct of the receiver.

"Throughout his period of office, Thomas Newsome not only abhorred physical violence - "it corrodes the soul of both the giver and the receiver" - but saw it as a positive deterrent to progress.

"An Important Notice to all members of Staff" was printed.

"The administrator warns all members of staff that corporal punishment of any kind given with or without an instrument is most rigidly forbidden by the Managers," (see http://besfordcourtschool.co.uk/)



The British Film Institute records a 2004 TV documentary entitled The Besford Boys, "about the appalling treatment of boys with special educational needs during the 1940s and 1950s.".



For many years it was a Catholic school for special needs pupils and was known as Besford Court Hospital. Following the closure of the school, Besford Court has been converted into luxury apartments (around 2001). Although Grade 2* there has been much change in the interior - the old Banqueting Hall is now one residence.





Image: Besford Court- the original timber-framed section dates from around 1500, added to in 1912. Image is Copyright Philip Halling, taken 10/2/2011. Used under licence- Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike.

See [[commons:File:Besford Court - geograph.org.uk - 799027.jpg]]