We started the day in Godstone on a wild goose chase with a derelict farm that had a live house so then drove over to Jasmeah Islameah School but again thwarted by the presence of cars park outside suggesting it wasn’t worth the hassle. As a last resort we headed to St Anne’s after it popped up on a Google search.
We parked up and were able to just stroll in to the grounds, much different to what is shown on the map as there’s only one building left and a smaller thing that was full of ball pit balls that there was no entry to.
As we were going in 3 other explorers were coming out, they hadn’t been inside but there was a way. They were new to exploring and tagged along with us. I’ve not entered a building this way before and not sure we would have been brave enough if on our own. It was really dark inside so once again my camera/phone protested, my tripod was playing up and i’d left my camera remote in the car so it was pretty much point, click and hope for the best. I also have the world’s worst torch.
For a small looking building it was actually quite big inside and not overly trashed, only one room with graffiti in it. The floors on the first floor are a bit spongy and the second floor one is falling through so I only went to the top of those stairs but there’s nothing up there really anyway.
In all a nice little explore, not done a school before. Wished our comrades all the best for their future explores and came home a lot later than anticipated.
History
The site of St Anne’s School forms part of what was originally a 30-acre tract of land called The Hides, sloping down from the ridge carrying Western Road to the course of the Winterbourne Stream.
On 12 August 1834 the first stone was laid, in the south-east angle of the building, ‘by the rector, and his wife but by the 1850s three of the four strips of the land to the west of the house became the site for Lewes Cemetery, and in 1882 the remaining strip was added to the Rectory’s land. The house remained the rectory for less than a century; on 8 May 1920 it was sold, with the permission of the patrons, the bishop of Lewes and the archbishop of Canterbury, to John Henry Every, owner of the Phoenix Ironworks and the so-called King of Lewes.
On 20 September 1955 John Every’s grandson sold the house and land to the County Council ‘as a site for a school for educationally sub-normal children and a site for rebuilding Southover Church of England School’. The building was restored and expanded between 1958 and 1960, and in that year St Anne’s Special School, which had been established in De Montford Road in 1951, moved to Rotten Row. The school closed at the end of the Summer term of 2005.
We parked up and were able to just stroll in to the grounds, much different to what is shown on the map as there’s only one building left and a smaller thing that was full of ball pit balls that there was no entry to.
As we were going in 3 other explorers were coming out, they hadn’t been inside but there was a way. They were new to exploring and tagged along with us. I’ve not entered a building this way before and not sure we would have been brave enough if on our own. It was really dark inside so once again my camera/phone protested, my tripod was playing up and i’d left my camera remote in the car so it was pretty much point, click and hope for the best. I also have the world’s worst torch.
For a small looking building it was actually quite big inside and not overly trashed, only one room with graffiti in it. The floors on the first floor are a bit spongy and the second floor one is falling through so I only went to the top of those stairs but there’s nothing up there really anyway.
In all a nice little explore, not done a school before. Wished our comrades all the best for their future explores and came home a lot later than anticipated.
History
The site of St Anne’s School forms part of what was originally a 30-acre tract of land called The Hides, sloping down from the ridge carrying Western Road to the course of the Winterbourne Stream.
On 12 August 1834 the first stone was laid, in the south-east angle of the building, ‘by the rector, and his wife but by the 1850s three of the four strips of the land to the west of the house became the site for Lewes Cemetery, and in 1882 the remaining strip was added to the Rectory’s land. The house remained the rectory for less than a century; on 8 May 1920 it was sold, with the permission of the patrons, the bishop of Lewes and the archbishop of Canterbury, to John Henry Every, owner of the Phoenix Ironworks and the so-called King of Lewes.
On 20 September 1955 John Every’s grandson sold the house and land to the County Council ‘as a site for a school for educationally sub-normal children and a site for rebuilding Southover Church of England School’. The building was restored and expanded between 1958 and 1960, and in that year St Anne’s Special School, which had been established in De Montford Road in 1951, moved to Rotten Row. The school closed at the end of the Summer term of 2005.
