Dunstable Yesteryear: Memorial garden on the old school quad
With the Royal British Legion’s annual Poppy Appeal about to begin, this is an appropriate time to publish a photo of the memorial garden at Dunstable’s former Grammar School.
The school, which opened in 1888, became Ashton Middle School in 1971, and the building was declared surplus to local educational requirements in 2016. It was then converted into the present Ashton Grove apartments, with great care being taken to preserve much of the original main building.
The memorial library, for instance, is still intact. It contains the names of the Old Boys of the school who died in the two World Wars. In front of the library entrance, on the school’s old quadrangle where cadet corps parades once took place, is a memorial garden planted around metal statues of two soldiers.
Dunstable’s Poppy Appeal, which raised over £53,000 last year, is being supported over the next fortnight by many local schools and businesses. There will be appeal collectors in many of the town’s supermarkets who will include Dunstable’s army and air cadets, Dunstable Town Council staff and members of Dunstable History Society and Dunstable Rotary Club. Local councillors selling Poppies will include the Mayor, Cllr Louise O’Riordan.
Yesteryear is compiled by John Buckledee, chairman of Dunstable and District Local History Society,