Colwell School was constructed and opened in 1907 in the centre of Gloucester, as a mixed school catering for boys and girls as well as infants. In 1925 it became Derby Road Central School, and after the 1944 Education Act it became a secondary technical school, with the boys school moving sites in 1957 and the girls school staying put at Derby Road, which in 1974 reopened as Colwell Grammar School for Girls. The school closed in 1988 and at some point afterwards became home to the Colwell site of Gloucester College, and they vacated the premises in or around 2007.
Since closing, it is fair to say the school has had a rough time. A fire in 2019 or 2020 (ish) did some damage to the ground floor, and a much larger fire in 2022 completely gutted what was left of the interior of the ground floor. There was also an enormous cannabis grow in there at some point taking up nearly every room. I found this place completely by accident and decided to have a look as we were in the area, access was way easier than I expected it to be given it is steel sheeted around the entire ground floor. I only really wanted to see what was hiding behind the tall first floor windows which was obviously a hall of some kind, and it's safe to say it was way better than I thought it might be. The upstairs assembly hall has somehow survived the utter chaos that has unfolded in the building since closure and if you can look past the small amount of tagging is a beautiful decayed room. The rest of the school contains classrooms arranged around the upper assembly hall as well as the fire ravaged lower hall (cafeteria?), and is pretty unremarkable, but seeing the upper hall definitely made it worth the stop.
I love old schools of this vintage, and this just proves to me that even one that has had a couple of large fires, an even larger cannabis grow, and is now home to junkies using the ground floor as a place to shoot up, can still be hiding something rather nice.
Thanks for looking
Since closing, it is fair to say the school has had a rough time. A fire in 2019 or 2020 (ish) did some damage to the ground floor, and a much larger fire in 2022 completely gutted what was left of the interior of the ground floor. There was also an enormous cannabis grow in there at some point taking up nearly every room. I found this place completely by accident and decided to have a look as we were in the area, access was way easier than I expected it to be given it is steel sheeted around the entire ground floor. I only really wanted to see what was hiding behind the tall first floor windows which was obviously a hall of some kind, and it's safe to say it was way better than I thought it might be. The upstairs assembly hall has somehow survived the utter chaos that has unfolded in the building since closure and if you can look past the small amount of tagging is a beautiful decayed room. The rest of the school contains classrooms arranged around the upper assembly hall as well as the fire ravaged lower hall (cafeteria?), and is pretty unremarkable, but seeing the upper hall definitely made it worth the stop.
I love old schools of this vintage, and this just proves to me that even one that has had a couple of large fires, an even larger cannabis grow, and is now home to junkies using the ground floor as a place to shoot up, can still be hiding something rather nice.
Thanks for looking
