An account of this period would not be complete without mention of the onyx bathroom. This bathroom was situated over the common room and consisted of a huge square bath let into the floor, which would bath up to ten children at a time. The bath, floor and walls were all lined with onyx marble and the enormous weight of this had to be supported on concrete pillars cunningly hidden by panelling in the room below. The onyx bath proved enormously popular and in true Wennington fashion mixed bathing without costumes was the order of the day. Somehow news of this leaked out to the people of Wetherby who were scandalised and much tut-tutting against the School was to be heard. Sadly the bath had to go as this too was a valuable asset. I believe it was sold for about £2000 - a tidy sum for those days.

Then the builders moved in. What dramatic times these were. Garages along the west side of the courtyard had their roofs removed while a new biology lab, and two staff flats were built over, the garages being converted into the new science lab. Other buildings on the north side were converted into classrooms and the junior school. Building work was everywhere, a new covered passage linked the main building with the cloakrooms, toilets were provided for the girls and a urinal for the boys in the small courtyard by the kitchen area. New larger windows were provided in the workshop and Louis gained a conversion job in the stables when a pottery and adjacent kiln were added. Frank seemed content with his sleeping accommodation in the converted summer-house by the swimming pool and accommodation for two members of staff was created out of the summer-house on the terrace by the staff room.

We were delighted with our new accommodation. Roger arrived and took command of the new biology lab. (replacing Foster in geography). Tony took over the subject of French and immediately set about doing all he could to immerse us in Gallic culture with much singing of traditional French songs and the subtle addition of French posters on the classroom walls.

All the building work was complete and there was even some money left over to repair the worst of the pot-holes in the drive. The Italian prisoners who worked in the fields and whistled at the girls were being repatriated and the School settled down in its new quarters. Those from Wennington Hall were perhaps beginning grudgingly to admit that Ingmanthorpe wasn’t so bad after all. In any case they were fewer now, some had gone and newcomers had arrived.

It was a good thing all was complete before the coldest winter of the century closed in. We had six week of nightly blizzards and time and again the drive was blocked with snowdrifts. Mind you, we loved it really. There was a pond (probably long gone) just on the turn of the drive in front of the house, where we had a superb slide. With a small run you could travel about twenty feet along the ice...

Frank Burgess once said to my parents that the School was in its experimental stage during the early years at Wennington Hall. If this was so it must surely be true to say that by 1945 it knew where it was going. A year or so after the move to Yorkshire the Ministry of Education sent a team of inspectors to stay with us for a few days and attempt to classify us. Shortly after, Kenneth had a letter to say it had been decided that we were a grammar school. Most seemed pleased by this, but it still seems to me (as it did then) that to attempt to classify Wennington in any way, was to attempt the impossible…...

Anthony Bickersteth 1945-1949