Birkdale High School
Visited January 2022
The school’s building was built into two phases, one bit which was formerly the Wheelwright All Girls Grammer School which then had a bridge built over to the other phase in 1980 which was for both genders.
When entering the former all girls school you can see the difference in time and condition of the buildings compared to the first phase you enter.
Despite a campaign by parents, staff, pupils and members of the local community to keep Birkdale High School open, Kirklees Council formerly closed School down in August 2011 due to the lack of pupils present, it is known to hold up to 800 pupils and before shutting down forever they had under 400 pupils, mainly being males.
In May 2015, the CBBC show Hank Zipper filmed at the closed school premises after production was relocated from St Catherine’s Catholic High School to Birkdale for Series 3 Onwards. The main entrance sign was carved as “Westbrook Academy”
Entering the premises, you can clearly see the roofs have been stripped, & it has been destroyed but there is still loads to see which is amazing considering a lot of places you explore these days is just ruined and nothing “exciting” to see.
Unfortunately because we visited this in the dark, you always get the unknown. We didn’t get to the All Girls side as we started hearing footsteps & noises, at first it heard like pigeons on the tiles of the roof but it turned out to be footsteps because of the extreme loudness to it. We weren’t far away from our entry point so we headed back, bearing in mind we had been in here for a good few hours.
As leaving, we heard a “hello” followed by a dog barking.. with us being so close to some houses, we assumed it was a dog in the garden until we headed back down the path towards the car & the man’s voice and the dog being so close & clear , it was clear to say they were definitely in the building with us.
We are definitely going to give this another go but in the daylight where things are little more visible.
Visited January 2022
The school’s building was built into two phases, one bit which was formerly the Wheelwright All Girls Grammer School which then had a bridge built over to the other phase in 1980 which was for both genders.
When entering the former all girls school you can see the difference in time and condition of the buildings compared to the first phase you enter.
Despite a campaign by parents, staff, pupils and members of the local community to keep Birkdale High School open, Kirklees Council formerly closed School down in August 2011 due to the lack of pupils present, it is known to hold up to 800 pupils and before shutting down forever they had under 400 pupils, mainly being males.
In May 2015, the CBBC show Hank Zipper filmed at the closed school premises after production was relocated from St Catherine’s Catholic High School to Birkdale for Series 3 Onwards. The main entrance sign was carved as “Westbrook Academy”
Entering the premises, you can clearly see the roofs have been stripped, & it has been destroyed but there is still loads to see which is amazing considering a lot of places you explore these days is just ruined and nothing “exciting” to see.
Unfortunately because we visited this in the dark, you always get the unknown. We didn’t get to the All Girls side as we started hearing footsteps & noises, at first it heard like pigeons on the tiles of the roof but it turned out to be footsteps because of the extreme loudness to it. We weren’t far away from our entry point so we headed back, bearing in mind we had been in here for a good few hours.
As leaving, we heard a “hello” followed by a dog barking.. with us being so close to some houses, we assumed it was a dog in the garden until we headed back down the path towards the car & the man’s voice and the dog being so close & clear , it was clear to say they were definitely in the building with us.
We are definitely going to give this another go but in the daylight where things are little more visible.
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