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Known locally as "Brimscombe Poly", this school began around 1888, at first and briefly in the Brimscombe Institute building, and then in the old canal warehouse building at Brimscombe Port. After extensive rebuilding it was officially reopened in 1911, by the Duchess of Beaufort.
In 1910, 329 students enrolled including both boys and girls. The main subjects taught were woodwork, leatherwork, embroidery, art-needlework, arithmetic, book-keeping, office routine, shorthand, typewriting, science, cabinet making, metalwork, mechanical engineering and ornamental ironwork. At one time the needs of local industry were even catered for so specifically that there were classes in umbrella and walking stick making!
At a later date, the students moved to the School of Science & Art in Lansdown, Stroud, and the building at Brimscombe became a secondary school. Following the opening of the Thomas Keble School at Eastcombe in 1962, the Brimscombe site closed and was sold with the surrounding land for £13,000 to Bensons Tool Works Ltd, who had come down to the area from Birmingham in 1949. Bensons demolished the old buildings and built a new factory on the site.
From January 2016, this website is managed by Stroud Local History Society
Revised 2018 EMW