City of Coventry Boarding School

As a 9/10-year-old I was sent to the City of Coventry Boarding School in Cleobury Mortimer for a week. Does anybody else have any similar experience or does anybody know anything of the history of the place?

Hi Bryn. My father was evacuated there during the war and it was his proud boast that he helped lay the paths. Not much in the way of info, but as it is said, "Every little helps"

I was involved in selling the school when it finally closed and, of course, visited several times. It first closed as a boarding school and then operated residential courses which were funded through the Manpower Services Commission. The Council then sold it to a Christian youth organisation and I was led to believe Cliff Richard was connected with them in some way. I do not know how Coventry came to select the site [known as Wyre Farm] but the huts were built of maple by the Canadian Air Force and was initially used for evacuation during WW2. Another intriguing feature was that the Elan pipeline ran through the site and I have heard that this pipeline from Elan to Birmingham operates solely on gravity - a pretty remarkable achievement!

My brother suffers with asthma and during the late 40's or early 50's he spent a term at Wyre Farm. Our Dr considered that the cleaner fresher air would benefit him. He is 76 now so it couldn't have done him any harm.

There's a good link here with school photographs etc. Wyre Farm website

A very good link Foxcote. I would not be surprised if you get a good result from this. Clever girl.

I remember going there for a week too Bryn, not sure but I think it was just before I started secondary school. That would have been 1963 I think. From what I can recall we had a great time, we were in long dormitories with bunk beds. There were lots of outdoor activities - just as well it was the week of summer Great link Foxcote

Glad you appreciated it, Barbinoz

Many years ago I was friends with a chap called Tony Tompkins who as a child had gone to Cleobury Mortimer. One day when we had nothing to do we decided to head out to visit the school. So Tony, myself and a guy called Derek piled in a Morris Minor and off we went. We got fairly close to the school and as we had plenty of time we decided to drive around the Clee Hills so Tony could show off his knowledge of the local area. What his local knowledge did not extend to was the almighty explosions that were about to occur in front of the car leaving us all very alarmed. The TA were on manoeuvres in the hills and had a extremely plentiful supply of thunderflashes. It was almost justification for joining the TA and wearing khaki trousers. We left that area pretty quickly and headed back to the school where Tony met some of his old teachers who all remembered what a hard working student he had been (yeah right). Not only that, one of the very elderly teachers was sure that he had taught me. That would have been difficult as I had never attended that school. Still, it was a good day out. On the way back we got lost a few times, although local pubs are very good with directions

I run the Wyre Farm / City of Coventry Boarding school blogspot - thanks a lot for linking it here. We've sourced a lot of photos, memories and resources for it over the last year and half and more are welcome. You can read how it started - part of the National Camps Corporation project with over 30 similar camp schools around the country. There's an index on the site. Former pupils and daughters of staff now also share memories on facebook here Feel free to join the page and share your memories.