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Cannington Babes and Tots
This group was formally known as
the Cannington Mothers &
Toddlers Group but changed its
name in 1998 to Cannington Babes
and Tots in order to encourage
fathers and carers to come to
the sessions as well as the
mothers. The group welcomes
children from the age of 0 to 4
years. The group currently meets
in the Village Hall on Tuesday
and Thursday mornings at 9.45am.
The children have lots of toys
to play with, they can
experiment with their artistic
talents and sing nursery rhymes
and songs. It is also a good
opportunity for the parents to
sit and relax in a friendly
atmosphere. Weekly subscriptions
and local fund raising events
finance the Group.
Cannington Pre-school
In June 1997 the Playgroup
decided to change its name to
Cannington Pre-school in order
to emphasise its educational
bias. The Pre-school is open
Monday to Thursday mornings from
9.00am to 1.00pm and 9.00am to
3.00pm for children going to
school in the following
September. The School is held in
the Village Hall and is run by a
committee of parents employing
four members of staff.
From 1996 the
Pre-school has been through many
changes owing to the nursery
voucher system introduced by the
Government in 1997. This new
system enables children to
receive free nursery education
for five sessions each week
starting with the first school
term after their fourth
birthday.
In order for
Cannington Pre-school to receive
these vouchers they are required
to ‘provide a curriculum to
encourage children to reach the
desirable outcome for learning
in six areas on entering
compulsory education’. The
Government inspectors, OFSTED,
visited Cannington Pre-school in
February 1998. The resulting
report was very positive and
praiseworthy and outlined many
good qualities.
The Pre-school
has gone from strength to
strength over the years and this
must be a credit to all the
supervisors and assistants.
The Primary School
A parish school for all
denominations was set up in 1732
in the Almshouses and the Master
was paid £5 per annum. In 1764
Lord Clifford set up a Roman
Catholic School, the Headteacher
being paid the same as the head
of the Parish School. In 1794
and 1801 The Misses Sarah and
Mary Warren left money for a
Schoolmistress to teach poor
girls reading, knitting and
plain needlework. The pay was
£2.50 per annum. The core of the
present building was erected on
land belonging to Lord Clifford
in about 1836. This was the
National School and no more
children were taught in the
Almshouses after 1840. It housed
279 children and the endowment
by that time was worth £3.12s.6d
was supplemented by 2 or 3 pence
per week paid by the children.
Average attendance was fewer
than 150. Early in the 20th
century the school became a
Public Elementary school and the
value of the endowment had
fallen to 13/4d. In the 1930s
the Clifford Estate sold the
land to the Church, which later
set up the VC School.
During 1940 a
London school was evacuated to
Cannington with its own staff.
The school was held in the
Village Hall, but as children
returned to London and numbers
fell, the remainder joined
Cannington and continued to use
the Village Hall. The infants
and seniors were housed in the
main building and some juniors
in the Village Hall Committee
Room.
The main hall was
used for PE and country dancing.
At this time the school
consisted of the hall, divided
by a screen, on one side of
which were the upper juniors and
the seniors were taught on the
other side. The kitchens and the
lower juniors’ classrooms were
across the entrance hall as were
the infants’ classrooms and
cloakrooms. The boys toilets
were in the yard behind this and
the girls’ yard with toilets was
behind the juniors’ classroom
with washbasins in an open sided
shed. Coke burning stoves heated
each room and there was no
staffroom.
In 1948 the
Village Hall was still being
used as a classroom and a
request by the managers for two
Horsa huts was approved with the
possibility of a staffroom.
During the 1950s more use was
made by the village of the
school facilities: band
practice, WI, drama rehearsals,
the Flower Show and Church Fete.
In 1955 there were 4 male and 4
female members of staff and a
clerical assistant was
appointed. However, the
following year saw the end of
the all-age school and there was
no deputy head’s allowance as
numbers fell below 200. Numbers,
however, soon rose again and by
1963 there was an urgent need
for more teaching space, (two
infant classes were being taught
in one of the Horsa huts).
Eventually two Pratten huts were
erected and the PTA funded the
new swimming pool.
Following the
sudden death of the Headmaster,
Bill Pyke, (who was also Church
organist and choirmaster) and
the appointment of Walter Harris
there was considerable
remodelling of the original
school building. A new kitchen
was built in front of the main
hall; the area to the rear
became an open plan infants area
with cloakroom and toilets and
one room which became the
library. There were mobile
classrooms on the playground
while the building work went on.
In 1975 a summer holiday
play-scheme was launched with
support from Sedgemoor District
Council. This allowed for
supervised activities during two
weeks of the summer holidays.
This was a very good period for
school athletics and sports
teams. More out-of-school
activities were undertaken. Each
class spent at least one day
during the summer term on an
out-of-school project. The older
children had the opportunity to
spend up to one week at a school
camp in late spring or early
summer. The school numbers were
now falling and during the 80s
there was more co-operation with
neighbouring schools for some
activities. To come up-to-date
the Horsa huts are to be removed
this year (1999) and the school
now has its first lady Head.
The Present Day
Mrs. Jan. Hossent
was appointed Acting Head as
from September 2002.
The successful
bid for Government money through
the "New Deal for Schools"
initiative led to the Horsa huts
being demolished during the
summer of 1998. The building of
the new teaching block began in
the following spring to be
dedicated by the Bishop of Bath
and Wells in September 1999.
Security has been
improved and other enhancements
planned are developments to the
grounds to include a copse in
memory of the late Mike Bailey,
outstanding and much respected
Headteacher from 1984 – 1998.
There are
currently 159 pupils on the
school roll and in September
1999 Cannington will return to
having six classes.
Currently there are five
full-time and three part-time
teachers; a Finance Officer/
Secretary and many
part-time support staff who
together provide the children
with a broad and balanced
education.
The National
Curriculum sets out the three
core subjects of English,
Mathematics and Science,
together with Art, Geography,
Music, History, Physical
Education and Technology. In
addition children are taught
Religious Education.
The introduction
of a Literacy and a Numeracy
Hour means that there is a
return to greater emphasis on
the key skills of reading,
writing and mathematics.
The school
encourages football, netball,
cricket, music tuition in guitar
and recorder, and table tennis.
Many sporting
successes have been achieved in
recent years; of particular note
winning the final of the
Somerset Primary Schools
11-a-side cricket finals in 1995
and again in 1996 which was held
at the Somerset County Cricket
Club ground.
Pupils enjoy
activities ranging from drama,
music and art to sessions at
Chilton Trinity Sports Centre;
raise money for charities and
enjoy performing for parents and
families. During the last year
pupils have been on a
residential visit to Kilve Court
where they walked, abseiled,
climbed, went mountain biking,
did archery, played mini-golf
and many more activities.
The school has a
very active and supportive
Parent-Teacher Association which
maintains the school's outdoor
learner swimming pool and
provides many extra resources. A
popular event is the "Duck Race"
held in June, when plastic ducks
are released and race down the
brook to the great excitement of
the local children and some of
their parents and families!
The school
received a very good report from
its first OFSTED inspection in
March 1998. It was judged to be
"a happy, caring school where
pupils are well cared for and
relationships are good. The
staff, governors and the wider
school community were delighted
with the report.
Moving into its
fourth century, a school in
Cannington having been first
founded in 1732, the Primary
School for Cannington and its
surrounding community is well
placed for facing the challenges
of the new millennium.
Brymore
School Of Rural Technology
Situated a mile from the centre
of the village on the A39 to
Minehead is a complex which
provides further evidence of the
long and varied history of
Cannington - Brymore School.
The main house
and surrounding land have not
been that well documented in the
past but what has been
researched provides a small
insight into its history.
About one
thousand years ago, in Saxon
times, the land around Brymore
was worked by a man named Edric.
After 1066 William the Conqueror
carved England up between his
supporters and by the 12th
century the land was owned by a
Norman family called de Coursey.
The name 'Brymore'
came later and its origin is not
clear. It may have come from a
Geoffrey de Bramora who held the
land in 1216, or 'Brymore' may
be a corruption of 'Broom Moor'
after the wild yellow-flowered
shrub.
In any case, by
the end of the 13th century
Brymore belonged to the Pym
family who held it until the
death of Mary Pym in 1729. It
was one of the Pyms probably
Philip who built the present
porch, in the early 1400s, while
a stone-built drain that runs
from the main building to
Padnoller Brook and a well
outside the stable block may
date from the same time.
The most
notorious of the Pym family was
John Pym (1584-1643). He was a
well-known figure during the
Civil War, being Oliver
Cromwell's right hand man. He
was the mastermind behind the
Parliamentary Campaign and
without him Parliamentarians
might well have submitted to
Charles's unbending attitude and
agreed to compromise.
In1936 a document
was found in the attic at
Brymore. Dated 1400 it allowed a
certain Isabel,
step-mother-in-law of one of the
Pyms, a pension of five marks
(£3.50) a year and a lodging
called 'Hodkins Chamber' which
appears to have been a
one-roomed house near the main
residence a sort of medieval
granny annex.
In 1729, Brymore
passed from the Pyms to the
Hales family and then, in 1836,
to the Pleydell Bouveries. The
Bouveries were great benefactors
of the surrounding area. One of
the stained glass windows in
Cannington church is a memorial
to some of the family and no
doubt Bouverie Road, off of the
main Quantock Road, has some
connection to the family. They
added considerably to the house
but early this century one of
them is said to have
over-indulged his passion for
the theatre and, possibly
actresses. Stories have it that
he was in the habit of
chartering special trains from
London to Bridgwater to bring an
entire company of a musical
comedy to Brymore for a
weekend's entertainment. Not
surprisingly, the estate fell
into decline.
In 1928 the house
was sold to Gordon Cecil Hart
and remained in his hands until
1936 when it was acquired by
Louis Brugiere who in turn sold
it to Richard Dorr Penoyee the
following year (1937).
At first it was
proposed that Parliament should
move to Malvern College, so the
girls of the College were moved
to Brymore. They only stayed one
term and were replaced by fist
Italian prisoners of war then
Germans.
In 1943, the
535th Automatic Weapons
Battalion of the US Army moved
in. The officers slept in the
main building, the other ranks
in tents. They built what are
now the School Classrooms 1,2,3
and 4 as temporary offices. Room
2 now houses the Computer room
furnished with state of the art
computers in a building 55 years
old! The initials of at least
one American are still carved in
the lead flashing on the roof of
School House and their gun
emplacements can still be seen
near the ponds and elsewhere.
Their heavy vehicles were parked
along the front drive and they
so compacted the soil that it is
still hard to grow trees between
the drive and the stream.
The South Front
of the building has not changed
much and consists of five
roughcast bays dating from the
late 18th century, probably
built in two stages with three
later ones added in the 19th
century to the east of the
rubble and brick dressing. The
porch dates from medieval times
and from the main office can be
seen the original stone
staircase. The one-acre of
walled garden dates from 1753
and is worked today by boys who
have their own plots, along with
fruit trees. The 18th century
Orangery although used for
storage still portrays the
elegance of such a building in
its heyday. The large late 19th
century stable block now houses
the School's workshops.
On the 26th June,
1951 Somerset County Council had
the good sense to purchase
Brymore when it came up for sale
at a total cost of £6,600.
Following extensive repairs and
alterations it opened as a
Secondary Technical School of
Agriculture in September 1952.
50 boys aged 13
started that Autumn Term with
the boarding fees for the first
term being £16. 6s.8p. Today 200
boys attend the school and the
current fees for autumn 1998 are
£1,310. The official opening was
held at the end of the first
academic year and was performed
by the Right Honourable Lord
Carrington, M.C. who was at the
time Joint Parliamentary
Secretary to the Minister of
Agriculture and Fisheries. When
Brymore celebrated its 40th
anniversary Lord Carrington
returned for the celebrations
and planted a tree to
commemorate the occasion.
The school is
unique and boasts its own farm,
gardens and workshops which are
second to none.
The aims of the
school have changed little over
the years: to give a sound
general education to boys
motivated by a strong interest
in agriculture, horticulture,
crafts and the countryside
irrespective of their ultimate
careers; to provide a
theoretical background on which
those entering technical and
other careers can build their
future; to foster in each pupil
a rounded personality, aware of
his value and worth to society.
The majority of the aims are met
in the practical aspect of the
Brymore curriculum. Years 9,10
and 11 follow the core
curriculum subjects which lead
to GCSE and NVQs in Agriculture
and Horticulture. A small number
of boys stay on at the school
for an additional year to study
BTEC 1st Diploma in Agriculture
or Horticulture or NVQ
Engineering.
Boys work and run
the 60-acre school farm that
includes a dairy herd, beef
animals, sows, poultry and a
flock of ewes with lambs. Crops
are grown with the dairy herd in
mind but as many other crops as
is possible are grown on a
smaller scale, including
potatoes, which are supplied to
the school kitchen.
The commercial
glasshouses, polytunnel and
walled garden also supply fruit
and vegetables for the school
kitchen. The pupils pursue their
horticultural interests through
working on individual plots in
their spare time
The well-known
environmental journalist, Julian
Pettifer, officially opened the
extended workshop complex in
1988. Formerly the stable
block, it contains specialist
areas for wood, metal, plastics
and control technology as well
as a foundry and a forge for
budding blacksmiths. The
workshops also contribute to the
construction, maintenance and
repair of equipment, furniture
and machinery used elsewhere in
the school.
Brymore is
exceptionally proud of its
sporting records in both team
and individual events. Rugby,
cross-country and hockey are the
main winter sports while
athletics, swimming and cricket
are enjoyed in the summer
months. Table tennis and golf
are two fairly new
introductions, which are proving
to be very popular.
Two-thirds of the
pupils board and although the
majority come from within
Somerset the others come from
all over Great Britain. 110 are
accommodated in the Main School
House while 40 stay in the
village at Cannington House
having to walk up to school
every morning and return again
each evening. As many boys are
boarders evening activities are
very popular and cater for
different tastes and interest
and include badger watching,
art, photography, fishing, Duke
of Edinburgh's Award Scheme,
fitness, weight training, Young
Farmers and astronomy.
With the
Agricultural backgrounds of many
boys the school has strong ties
with local societies and
regularly provides working
parties for the Royal Bath and
West Show and South West Dairy
Show.
Brymore's success
has always been based on its own
particular 3 'Rs’ Resilience,
Responsibility and
Resourcefulness-so much so that
the nature of Brymore is known
and admired throughout not only
Somerset but also the whole of
the United Kingdom.
Brymore can be
contacted at the address at the
top of this page or on the
Internet using this address:
http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/brymore/
Cannington
College:
A Brief History
of ‘The Institute'
In 1919, when Britain was in the
early stages of recovery from
the horrors of war, the Ministry
of Agriculture decided to create
a national network of
administrative and training
centres to support the country'
s need for efficient food
production.
Somerset, being a
mainly rural county, took a keen
interest in the initiative.
There was already a mobile
cheese training unit which
operated across the county
teaching people basic
cheesemaking.
People say two
potential sites were found for
the proposed centre - Dillington
House, near Ilminster and
Cannington Court. Mr A D Turner,
destined to be the first head of
Horticulture, campaigned hard
for Cannington Court on the
basis of its accessibility, the
suitability of the walled
gardens and its proximity to a
fine dairy farm. At the end of
1919, a deal was struck with
Somerset County Council and in
1921, the "Somerset Farm
Institute" (SFI) was officially
opened on the site, still known
as Cannington Court.
The College took
its first enrolment of 10
students in September 1921and
was formally opened at the end
of October by the Minister of
Agriculture, Sir A
Griffith-Boscawen, whose arrival
was actually delayed by a
traffic accident! The first
Principal was Mr T Limond.
The Bridgwater
Mercury of November 2nd, 1921
stated that the opening ceremony
was "of an interesting and
successful character".
The paper
congratulated the architects,
Messrs Sainson & Colthurst of
Bridgwater and the contractors,
Messrs H J Spiller & Son Ltd of
Taunton, for the manner in which
the extensive building work had
been carried out. "The interior
of the building having been
literally transformed". The
article went on to describe the
College as “the institute where
agricultural instruction of all
kinds will be imparted on the
most up to date lines".
One of those
enrolled in 1921 was Mr W T
(Tom) Parsons who, at 88 years
old, recalled this first year
clearly in an article for the
1997 Old Student magazine. The
first Matron, Miss
Lenegham, apparently wore a very
fetching uniform! and although
the Principal was replaced
within a few months by Mr Mackle
and Mr W D (Bonny) Hay was
appointed as Vice Principal, the
Caretaker and his wife, Mr and
Mrs Croaker did not retire until
1947.
In 1923, Mr
Mackle died from wounds suffered
during the First World War and
Mr W D Hay was appointed
Principal. Dairy and Poultry
courses were attracting an
increasing number of students
and in 1924, the first full-time
course in commercial
horticulture was started by Mr A
D Turner. Similar courses
continued up to the outbreak of
war in 1939.
Under the long
Principalship of W D Hay, the
Teaching Dairy, Poultry,
Pig and Administrative buildings
were developed. Farm Institute
staff carried out advisory work
on farms, in dairies and on
horticultural holdings. A
comprehensive range of Crop
Trials was conducted on the
farm. During the Second World
War, Cannington trained recruits
to the Women's Land Army while
the staff also helped to conduct
the war-time food growing
campaign in Somerset. During
this time the College dairy
students helped Miss Monie
to wrap cheese rations for
distribution across the country,
in exchange for food coupons.
The College
flourished during these years
and staffs such as Miss Monie
and Miss Maddever are still
remembered in the College for
their excellent dairy teaching.
Miss Monie's stern reputation
went before, as well as
after her, but old students
remember that underneath that
there was a very kindly
woman who was not averse to
sending a likely couple away to
the ripening room to turn the
cheeses together!
In 1945 the College had enrolled
52 students. In this year Mr Hay
left to become director of St
Bridget' s
Experimental Husbandry Farm in
Hampshire. He later went on to
become the grassland officer for
England and Wales and was
subsequently awarded the OBE.
His Vice Principal, Mr W J
England (Jackie) was appointed
as his replacement. As Principal
he guided the Institute back to
its former work with full-time
courses, purchased Rodway Dairy
Farm and erected new farm
buildings.
In 1948, Mr A J
Marval was appointed Vice
Principal a post he was to hold
with distinction for 16 years.
At this time the
Principal's office was located
in what is known today as Priory
Lodge, whilst the students lived
in Cannington Court. Old
students still recall the
sleeping accommodation, which at
this time was nicknamed 'the
horse boxes'. These were
cell-like sleeping compartments
where the walls were about 3
feet short of the ceilings and
it was possible to climb across
the tops of them to go secretly
to each other' s rooms, without
disturbing Matron. Some of the
more enterprising male students
used this to gain access to the
roof space and were able to drop
down into the girls' wing
unnoticed.
In 1951 Mr
England left Cannington to take
up a Principal's role in a
college in Kenya and Mr W
W Ballardie was appointed
Principal. Student numbers had
risen to 72. During Mr
Ballardie's term of office badly
needed teaching facilities were
developed, which included the
new dairy lecture room and
laboratories, the machinery
workshop and the initial stages
of the Priory Lodge conversion
and new hostel and teaching
block.
By 1960 the College was growing
even faster and more space was
urgently needed, even though the
Poultry department had closed.
Miss Hobbs, matron for many
years, was awarded the MBE and
Stan Ackland, Farm
Manager since 1922, was awarded
the BEM for services to
education. Plans were made to
extend the buildings further and
expansion began in earnest on
what is today called the Main
Site.
The College was already
established as a national centre
for dairying through the
sterling work of Miss Monie and
there was a great deal of
concern in the College about how
she could be replaced or who,
indeed, would be able to follow
such an important figure. Her
fierce Scots determination and
reputation for plain speaking
were renowned. These fears
however were quickly put aside
when Brian Galloway was
appointed in 1961. Brian was
also a fiercely determined Scot
and under his influence the
College's reputation for
dairying expanded to include
dairy food production. Vice
Principal for 16 years, Mr A J
Marvel, often had to take over
the reins during Mr Ballardie's
unfortunate ill-health and in
1964, when appointed Principal,
he carried on the development of
the new institute buildings on
the main site, the large
horticultural expansion at
Crockers and the growth of
block-release courses for the
dairy industry. Miss Maddever, a
former lecturer at the College,
working with Miss Monie, had
become dairy advisor for
Somerset and in her role as a
Governor of the College, fully
supported the development of the
food technology initiatives
introduced by Brian Galloway.
Brian and Miss Maddever were
presented to the Queen at St
James's Palace. It was later
reported that the Queen, when
introduced to Miss Maddever,
said that she had her cheeses
sent up from
Somerset, but felt that they
could be kept longer before
despatch. Miss Maddever replied
'"Yes Ma'am, I agree. I know who
makes it and I've told him so
before". The Queen was very
impressed by this response and
enjoyed it immensely.
The old calf unit behind
Montgomery House was identified
as an ideal place for expansion
for this new food production
unit. Sadly Brian Galloway died
before its final completion and
it was left to another Scotsman,
Norman Dickie, to take over the
new unit and develop
Cannington as a centre for food
technology.
In the meantime,
a new residential hostel, Jeanes
Hall, was built, named after Mr
Metford Jeanes, the Chairman of
College Governors. Due to
ill-health, in 1967, Mr Marvel
resigned the post of Principal
to become Vice Principal once
again and Mr P H Keen was
appointed Principal. At this
time the College had enrolled
approximately 100 students.
During his term of office
extensive drainage schemes for
the marshes were undertaken,
together with the completion of
the new College campus.
Extensive building developments
progressed on the farm and in
the Horticultural section.
In 1971 Mr C E C Bartlett was
appointed as the youngest Vice
Principal in the country. Mr
Bartlett brought a more academic
focus to the College's
portfolio, and in 1974 the
College offered its first
Ordinary National Diploma (OND).
This was a full-time, two-year
course in Food Technology, one
of the first in the country.
This was quickly followed in
1975 by the three-year sandwich
OND in Amenity Horticulture; and
in 1980 by a similar OND in
Agriculture. Mr Bartlett was to
act as Principal twice during
his 23 years in post. In 1991 he
was seconded as national advisor
to BTEC on the introduction of
the new land based national
qualifications (NVQ
and GNVQ). In 1993 he was
appointed directly to BTEC to
carry on his valuable work.
By now the College had 88
full-time students and 256
part-time students based in
centres as far apart as
Exmoor and Yeovil. The College's
reputation spread far and wide
and in the 1980s it was home to
students throughout the globe.
In 1987 an incident occurred
which further fuelled the
popular belief that Cannington
Court housed the ghost of a
young woman who had been
imprisoned several hundred years
before. It was claimed that the
young woman was a benign spirit
who wandered the corridors.
The 1970s and 80s
are remembered with great
fondness by former staff and
students alike. Graham Fry,
currently managing director at
Cricket Malherbie Farms, summed
it up when he said "Those who
think schooldays are the best
days of their lives didn't go to
Cannington College". When he was
a student during the early 80s,
he was struck by the fact that
so many people from various
different backgrounds could live
closely in such a positive and
harmonious environment. Everyone
seemed to want to be there and
the atmosphere was one of hard
work mixed with good
companionship. He remembers that
the majority of students in
those days had already been out
to work before returning to
study and this created a very
special background of mutual
support. He recalls the demise
in 1984 of the National
Certificate in Dairying, when
the quota system came in
and also the time of tremendous
floods, when students were
drafted in to assist local
farmers in retrieving their
livestock, much of which had not
survived the high waters. To
acknowledge their thanks, a
group of local farmers
threw a large party for the
students; not surprisingly he
does not remember much about it!
The early 1980s
saw one of the biggest water
fights that has ever taken place
in the College. Over 50 people
were involved, the most
memorable part being that the
students who were asked to
investigate and uncover the
culprits, were the very students
who had started it all.
Strangely enough no culprits
were ever found and it is only
in the writing of this story for
the millennium book that a
confession was made.
It was in 1980
that Mr M A Jeanes, beloved
Chair of Governors for over 20
years, was awarded an OBE in the
life of Cannington College and
with for services to education.
The end of the 80s marked an
important phase the dawning of
the 90s came a decade of
unprecedented change. David
Chapman became the Principal in
1989, following the retirement
of Mr Philip Keen, but
unfortunately died suddenly
after only six months in post.
Staff and students' sympathy
went out to Mr Chapman's wife
and young family and the College
was filled with the sense of
loss.
Cannington Court
was being used as the centre for
the Hinkley Point enquiry and
the College was to benefit from
the renovations carried out to
the building for this purpose.
In January 1990, after an
interregnum period held by Cy
Bartlett, Mr B J Gimbert was
appointed Principal. One year
later the College gained BS5750,
the internationally recognised
quality assurance kite mark.
Cannington was the first college
in the country to gain full
BS5750 accreditation and as such
attracted national attention.
Almost simultaneously with the
appointment of Mr B J Gimbert,
fundamental national changes in
the financial management of
colleges began to happen and in
1993, after a two-year
preparation period, all colleges
were required under a new Act of
Parliament to be separated from
their local authority and to be
managed and financed through
central government. In effect,
colleges became incorporated as
stand-alone businesses which
were required to make
significant savings in running
costs, whilst taking
responsibility for generating
their own income. This change
affected Cannington particularly
more than many others, since it
had very good
relationships with Somerset
County Council and had
been well funded in the past.
Realising that the funding would
significantly decrease in the
future, the Governors decided to
invest in new teaching resources
to meet the requirements of a
rapidly diversifying rural
economy.
In 1992
part-funded by the British
International Golf Greenkeeping
Association and the Royal and
Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews,
the College constructed a
full-size, nine-hole golf
course, to international
standards. The Equestrian Centre
Indoor School was built in 1993,
together with an extension to
the Student Common Room and Bar,
to accommodate the rapidly
growing number of students.
Cannington Court
was purchased from Lord Clifford
in 1994 and the College
constructed a Golf Clubhouse, to
complement the growing
membership of the new Cannington
Golf Club. In 1995 the
construction of the High Welfare
Pig Unit was completed. Just as
Stan Ackland had been a
well-known farm manager some
years before, so Steve Bryant,
the current Farms Director,
began to establish his expertise
and management skills. By the
mid 1990s the College's High
Welfare Pig Unit was winning
national awards for productivity
and the College's dairy
herd was the highest
yielding in the county. Steve
was also to be heard on a
regular morning slot on local
radio, talking about the
College's Aberdeen Angus herd
that were regularly winning
prizes at shows. Under his
direction the farm was recorded
as being the most efficient
college farm in the country in a
national bench marking survey
completed in 1997 and in 1999 he
established the College as a
venue for high quality cattle
sales.
1995 saw the deaths of both
Philip Keen and Metford Jeanes.
Two memorial Trust Funds to
assist students were established
in their names. In July of that
year Mr Gimbert resigned his
post. In September the College
had over 1,700 enrolments in
three centres across the region.
After a further interregnum
period, Mr Richard Hinxman
became Principal in January
1996. Mr Hinxman had a strong
business focus and the late 90s
sees Cannington heading towards
the millennium firmly
established as an education
business, dedicated to providing
quality-assured education and
training for people and
businesses involved with plants,
animals and sustainable land
use. Although the traditional
courses of agriculture and
horticulture still existed, they
became part of
a broader, diversified
curriculum which reflects the
diversity in the rural economy.
The end of the millennium saw
Cannington with Animal Care as
its largest single programme,
the College being unique in the
country for its training of
zoo-keepers. Golf greenkeeping,
sports science, agricultural
business, landscape and garden
design all formed part of the
diverse curriculum.
In September 2004, Cannington
College merged with nearby
Bridgwater College, and the
campus in the village is now
named the Cannington Centre for
Land-based Studies. The new
institution (known as Bridgwater
College) has a student
population of almost 19,000 -
including almost 3,000 16-19
year olds. Outreach Centres in
Bristol, Paignton and Yeovil
continue to provide education at
the highest standard for
land-based studies, but a whole
new breadth of curriculum is now
available through the merged
College.
Considerable investment is being
made into the infrastructure at
Cannington, with a new 1000 sq.m.
greenhouse having been
constructed in 2005. Student
accommodation is being
modernised and upgraded to
enhance the student experience
in the Village and a new Animal
Care Centre is being constructed
during 2006. |
