st johns primary & nursery school
The school was built in red brick with long classrooms on two floors, space for
a small office, and a cellar below the level of the pavement. The floor and the
steps to the cellar are stone and very well worn and cold. The cellar is made up
of several rooms, one of which was the bath house. Two cast iron baths were
placed in the room, with one on either side of the space. One bath is still in
place today with the ornamental feet still intact. The bathroom would have been
very cold and steamy as there was no window for ventilation. Two children at a
time, would have had a bath in the cellar at school, as the small terraced
houses in what is now the playground, had no bathrooms. They would have used
carbolic soap and scrubbing brushes. Delousing was normal and bathing was not so
common then. A fire, fed by coal, heated the water.
