The Club recently unearthed some fascinating contemporary original plans of the Rousdon (or Peek) Mansion from The Building News, June 26th, 1874; architect George and Vaughan.

These detailed architectural sketches showcase the magnificent South side of the building and provide intricate details of the Great Hall's construction.

We look forward to sharing more pages in the upcoming OH Magazine 2024.

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).