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Wednesday, 20 January 2010
The great granddaughter of Lord Leverhulme, the Honourable Mrs
Heber-Percy, was the guest of honour at a Bolton School foundation
stone laying ceremony, which was held to celebrate the construction
of a new Junior Girls' School on the campus. The school will
be called Hesketh House, in tribute to Lord Leverhulme whose full
name was William Hesketh* Lever. It was Lord Leverhulme's
vision and endowment in 1915 that brought Bolton High School for
Girls and Bolton Grammar School for Boys together to become Bolton
School (Girls' Division and Boys' Division). The new £5
million Junior Girls' School is being built by Bolton based
contractors G & J Seddon.
Seddons began work on the new school in July 2009 and despite
the recent extreme weather and challenges of the site, the project
remains on programme with a completion date of mid-July 2010.
The building is now virtually water tight with the internal
steelwork and the roof in place and the external structure and
brickwork is moving along at a rapid pace. The completed
building, which is expected to open officially in September 2010,
will provide a state-of-the-art facility with large classrooms
utilising the very latest in technological equipment.
Head of the Girls' Division at Bolton School, Mrs Gill Richards,
said: "The building of this new state-of-the-art school will give
the pupils even better facilities and represents a major investment
in the lives of young girls across the region. We will
educate about 200 girls from 7 to 11 years of age. The
current Junior School is situated within the Senior School so the
move will help give the school its own separate identity, whilst
freeing up more classroom space and allowing us to expand our
curriculum provision. We look forward to an exciting
future!"
The Hon Mrs Heber-Percy, who is also a governor at the School,
added: "It is a huge honour to be involved with today's event and
see how work is progressing on the new school. Already it is clear
that the new building will be a great investment in education for
future generations, and a fitting legacy for my great
grandfather."
Jonathan Seddon, Managing Director of G&J Seddon said:
"Bolton School has a reputation for its quality buildings and
beautiful surroundings and the new junior school will be a
fantastic addition to this learning environment. We are delighted
to be involved with this project and look forward to handing over
another state-of-the-art building for the pupils at Bolton
School."
Imogen Swift, aged 7 and the youngest girl in the Junior School,
said: "It is very exciting to watch the new school being built and
I can't wait to move in next year!"
The new Junior School is part of a wider building project
carried out by Seddons for Bolton School and follows the completion
of the new Infant School Beech House, and extensions and
refurbishments to the existing Boys' Division Junior School, which
make up part of an £18 million investment into the education and
futures of young people in the borough.
* The Hesketh name was a dual tribute to his mother, Elizabeth
Hesketh and to the unrelated wholesale grocers Stones & Hesketh
who had taken on William's father as a partner in 1841.
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