The past and the Archive represent the school’s roots. Without roots, nothing grows – Berwick Coates, Archivist
The West Buckland archive is a fascinating collection of records which have accumulated over the 150 years of the school’s history – books, photographs, governors’ minutes, balance sheets, reports, confirmation lists, school magazines, old pupils’ gatherings, celebrity visits, irate letters, architects’ drawings, cups, caps, bats, blazers. All have been found in dusty cupboards, the backs of drawers, a ship’s luggage trunk, old boys’ lofts, a games pavilion, even a few underneath the floorboards.
Visitors are always welcome. If you would like an appointment to look at the archives, please click on the link below.
The archive contents are available to anybody who wishes to inquire but mostly to the students themselves, and Berwick is keen to make them aware of its importance and significance through regular notice-board bulletins, morning assemblies, lectures and articles in the press.
Berwick has also published several books about the school.
West Buckland School – published in 2000 by Halsgrove [now Ryelands], and costs £19.95. A series of sideways looks at episodes in the school’s past.
The Natural History of a Country School – published in 2005 by Woodfield Publishing Ltd, cost £15.00. Looking at the life and work of the school through the eyes of its inmates.
West Buckland, the Diary of an Edwardian School – published by Ryelands in 2008, and costs £19.99. This diary presents the School as it approached its 50th in 1908.
Articles by Berwick Coates:
Sam Howells
Putting Something Back
Brereton has an Idea
The Exmoor
The Reverend Thompson Sends a Telegram