Shropshire primary school celebrates 175th birthday as former pupils share memories of days gone by
A Shropshire primary school has been celebrating its 175th birthday.
Staff, pupils, former pupils and community members all turned out for the special celebration at Welshampton C of E Primary School, near Ellesmere.
As part of the occasion pupils buried a time capsule containing items to be found by future generations, and planted a tree in the school's grounds.
The school also put together a display of historic pictures, showing the school through the years, and provided plenty of cake for the guests.
The school opened back in 1850.
A number of former pupils returned to share their memories of their time at the school - and to see how it has changed.
Headteacher Ben Crompton said they were delighted to be marking the occasion and celebrating the school's place at the heart of the community.
He said they had been pleased to welcome a number of former pupils.
He said: We have had a few in this afternoon, we've had maybe four or five local residents [whose] whole family - grandparents, great-grandparents - went to the school."
Christopher Jobson, who is now 81, was one of the former pupils in attendance, and provided a number of pictures for the exhibition.
He said: "My son came here, I came here, my sister came here, my mother came here, my grandfather came here, and my great-grandmother."
Mr Jobson looked back to the day he started - a date which coincided with the first school dinners rolled out by the new government of the time.
He said: "I started on September 6, 1949, and that was the first day of the new Labour Government as it was then, they introduced school dinners, and my first day at school was the first school dinners."
Looking at the current layout Mr Jobson also gave a glimpse into how it would have been for pupils learning in the 1950s.
He said: "There used to be a fireplace over here, and that was all the heating there was."
"We used to have to kind of sit in a fanfare around it in the very cold weather and she used to test us on times tables and spelling and if you got something wrong you would have to go to the back."
Fellow resident and former pupil Vera Lloyd said it was great that the school is still part of the community.
She said: "It is lovely to think it has lasted in this day and age."
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