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We recently received this incredible archive footage of the 1970 Allhallows Speech Day CCF Drill from Richard Anderson (Middlemist 1967 - 71).

Here are 775 drill squad in action. Some of those included in the footage are:

Fred Hopper, Tom Hammond, Tim Edwards, David Hayes.

Patrick Foley, Andrew Mason, Trimble, Clive Hollins.

David Viccars, Nigel Brown, Cox, and Richard Anderson

We have more to share soon including images and footage from other speech days — a huge thank you Richard for this incredible glimpse of CCF at Allhallows and for all the information. We look forward to interviewing you soon.

What a wonderful evening it was on Wednesday for the midpoint of the OH South West Golfing week, featuring the OHGS Championship.

We joined the members as they returned to the clubhouse at Lyme Regis Golf Course. The players included:

• John Bridger
• David Danskin
• Peter Green (Buggy)
• John Harper
• Richard Heard
• Peter Heron
• Rafi Husain
• Kit Magrath
• Jeremy Page
• John Pagliero
• David Reynolds
• Bryn Shorey
• Roddy Wakeford
• Steve White

We also took the opportunity to extend a huge thank you to John Pagliero, who is passing the baton (or driver) to OH David Danskin after 11 years of outstanding organization of this fabulous event.

We enjoyed catching up with everyone, sharing memories of our school, and distributing the prizes. Full details will be published soon.

After the afternoon event at Lyme Regis Golf Club, there was a wonderful meal at Poco Pizza in Lyme Regis, the perfect location.

Here are some photographs from the evening.

We also managed to interview John Pagliero too, we will be publishing it soon. Thank you to everyone for such a lovely afternoon and evening.

One of the interviews we also recorded was with David Reynolds (Shallow 1980 - 1985).

Picture this: students setting sail from Lyme to Allhallows Beach on a boat laden with alcohol. David shares some fantastic stories.

Thank you, David, for a wonderful interview.

We were also able to catch up with John Pagliero and thank him for his incredible stewardship of the OH Golfing Society over the last 11 years.

The Old Honitonians Club was informed today (21/06/24)  by Langdale Care Home of the very sad news of the passing of Mr John Bardolph, former teacher at Allhallows during the 1970s and 80s.

Many will have wonderful memories of John. We would like to post these as a tribute to him on our website. Please email your stories to honsecretary@oldhonitonians.online

John passed away on 9th June 2024 after a short illness, he was aged 87.

Funeral Details: 

John's funeral will be held on Monday 8^th July 2024 at 1:30pm at Holy Trinity Church in Gosport (https://www.holytrinitygosport.co.uk/). There will be a cremation at 3.15pm at Porchester Crematorium for close family members followed by a wake at 5 High Street, Lee on the Solent PO13 9BS. There will be food and drink to be available after the church service at the wake.

There is parking nearby at Walpole Park car park.

John's son Jonathan also contacted us recently and said: 

I have arranged for a live stream of the funeral on Monday as several people cannot attend due to distance/health etc. Here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/@holytrinitychurchgosport5561/streams

There is also an Order of Service available here.

The Club were recently entrusted with several cherished Allhallows items from Roddy Long's sister, Bunty. Among them is a beautiful Bible with an inscription for John Alan Kneath. We would love to reunite this precious item with his family. If you have any information or can help us connect with his relatives, please let us know

You can see the inscription in the picture below.

Thank you in advance.

How about this for a fantastic photograph, sent in by OH Patrick Musters (Stanton 1965 - 1970), capturing the memorable 1962 Speech Day at The Downs School! In it, we see George Shallow part of the group presenting a history prize to future OH Patrick.

Many Downs School pupils continued their educational journey at Allhallows, and we look forward to chatting with Patrick again soon to learn more about the close connections between these schools.

Thank you, Patrick.

It is always wonderful to see these photographs and hear the stories behind them Please feel free to share your memories and photographs too, do share stories with us through a direct message here or by email: honsecretary@oldhonitonians.online

Thank you

The Harding family has a long history with Allhallows. Jeremy Harding attended Allhallows in the 1960s, while Ralph was a pupil in the 1930s and 40s along with his brothers. Ralph, who is now 97 years old, is the Father of the OH Club.

At the West Country Lunch, it was a delight to see both of them in attendance. Here is an excerpt from the interview where Jeremy interviews his Uncle Ralph about the move from Honiton to Rousdon.

You can see more of our interviews on our YouTube Channel here.

We will be publishing the full interview soon.

The 2024 OH West Country Luncheon was an absolute delight!

We enjoyed a fabulous turnout and it was heartwarming to see so many Old Honitonians together laughing and sharing stories. Below are some snapshots from the afternoon that capture these joyous moments.

A heartfelt thank you goes out to our esteemed guest, Mr. Blooman, and to General Sir Roger Wheeler, who graced us with the opening prayer.

A special thanks also to Nigel French for his expert supporting Victoria Berry in handling the seating arrangements, and to Duncan and the entire team at the Victoria Hotel for their impeccable support, wonderful food and service.

Look forward to a detailed recount of this memorable gathering in the 2024 edition of the OH Magazine.

We're incredibly fortunate to have such a vibrant community. Thank you all for making the West Country Luncheon a success!

Here's a wonderful illustration of the Rousdon Mansion that we hadn't seen before.

Taken from a book called 'The South Devon Coast' by Charles G Haper and published by Chapman and Hall Ltd, 1907.

There is a chapter about Rousdon where the Mansion features, here is an excerpt:

'A remarkable feature of Rousdon mansion is the extensive use, internally, of Sicilian marble.

The great staircase and other portions of the house are built of it, and a beautiful dairy is wholly decorated with this material. It came here in a romantic and wholly unexpected way; having been the cargo of a ship wrecked on the rocks off Rousdon at the time when plans for the building were being made.'

We hope to be able to bring OHs more information on the incredible story of the Sicilian marble soon.

OH President Seb Warner recently addressed the Club with this video.

On a visit to Forres Sandle Manor School, he talks about the importance of the Old Honitonians Club, its exciting future and how you can get involved and interact with fellow OHs.

Do keep an eye out on our website for all OH Club events. Thank you. 

David Woollatt (Honorary Secretary).

If you are anything like me you can clearly recall Rousdon’s mixed bag of varied architecture, some of it in detail.

    Most OHs will agree that the best building exterior was on the mansion itself, designed by Victorian mansion-specialist Ernest George. I award the rambling flint-and-tile jumble of styles 10 out of 10 for architectural entertainment. I have looked up several other big houses designed by Ernest George and I reckon Rousdon is his masterpiece. It’s poetic and powerful. Completed in 1878, it was the first mansion that the young George had designed and, despite it being his first, it remains, as far as I can make out, his biggest.

    I also give 10 out of 10 to a lowly room beneath the huge mansion. “The Grott” was the name given to a humble sub-basement, apparently built as a boiler room and coal store but transformed during the school’s tenancy into an intimate rehearsal and performance space for jazz and, later, rock music. Mystically reachable only by ladder.

    Full marks for architecture also go to the chemistry and physics labs, a sensitive and smart substantial two-storey extension to Ernest George’s former stables. The science library attached to the labs formed a bridge which was a particularly exciting feature.

    One more place has to have full marks, in my opinion. That’s the art school, whose four rooms, nestling in farmyard rafters and hefty beams, were always a delight to draw and paint in.

    Almost as good, with 9 points, is the handsome clock tower. Of Allhallows, you might say, the clock tower was a striking symbol.

    More controversially, the interior of boring Venning scores 9. A lot of people knock this early 1960s boarding house because of its admittedly boring suburban exterior, but the inside was exciting. The theatrical double-storey top-lit central hall and stairs led up to dormitories under shallow-pitch exposed timber roofs. An exhilarating structure to see overhead from bed.

    Next, an excursion to award 9 points to Lyme Regis, whose seaside architecture and cobb combine with beach and steep high street to create one of Britain’s loveliest holiday towns, and a pleasant escape for boarders too.

    The school hall gets 8 for its splendour, its soaring height and its medieval make-believe.

    Ernest George’s design in not perfect. Chapel quad is spoilt by being dark and dingy. The quad’s smallness and the three storeys of masonry towering above it together stop much daylight reaching down to it. In my time the south cloister, across the dingy quad from the chapel, led to the one place where even a lowly pleb could get what he wanted. Because it led to the tuckshop, that dingy cloister on the south side of chapel quad gets a generous 8 from me. Surprising architectural pleasure can come from a place’s cheerful association with tuck.

    Scoring 7 are Rousdon’s magnificent gates with their gigantic neo-Romanesque stone gate posts, and the lawn-fringed half-mile drive.

    Ramps are a great novelty for exploiting the third dimension, so the two at Rousdon earn 6. One led from the red post box (itself an architectural embellishment) down to the deliveries yard. The other pleasing ramp was outside the former Baker study in the billiards wing of the mansion.

    I give the stuffed birds 5. I didn’t like them much. Appeared decaying. But I appreciate that for naturalist Sir John Lister-Kaye OH, and probably other biology enthusiasts, those glass cases contained treasure.

    Scoring lower still is the cricket pavilion, with 4. Built in the impoverished post-war years, and a missed opportunity. It’s just a bungalow. No cricket sizzle. It needed, say, widespread glazing, a soaring canopy or perhaps even a giant bat (the willow kind).

    Also getting 4 is the white marble staircase. A lot of OHs are fond of it but to me it’s a sore thumb. And the lavish material isn’t sustained. At the first floor it turns to mere wood.

    Nearing rock bottom now. Just 2 points for the Lillies building, the utilitarian study block and later junior school built outside the library windows in the late 1960s. An eyesore next to a palace.

    Floors in the mansion’s corridors also get just 2. Mosaics leave me cold. Particularly dull when their colour is restricted to dark grey and brown.

    During my time at school new construction plumbed an aesthetic abys with the disappointing Bruce biology labs. I remember little of that eyesore’s appearance, fortunately.

    Absolute zero in the 1960s with 0 is the basement room of baths nearest chapel quad. Dismal and depressing. Thank goodness I never had to have a bath there.

This is the final instalment of 12 monthly essays written for the OH website by George Hayter (V 65-70)