We paid this well trodden place a visit on the way back from our summer hol’s in the West Country. Miss2020, t2020jr and I arrived just as the sun decided to hide and the rain started to pour. After negotiating our way over 4 barbed fences and a stream, we found ourselves in what was a much larger place than I first thought. Whilst wondering around we all felt very uncomfortable for no real reason and it wasn’t until we found a stupidly easy exit compared to our entry that I realised that I had rushed my tour and not really taken the place in or taken photos that were worthy, oh well next time.
A bit of history.
Crookham Court stands on the former site of Crookham manor house, built around the start of 14th century and destroyed in 1543; the construction of the current building started around 1850 and continued in two more phases over the next fifty years.
The property played many roles, as a manor house then a junior school and then school for the children of the Military serving at Greenham Common. It was abandoned for some time after the US Air Force and then purchased in 1961 when it was used as a boarding school until 1990. In 1988 there was a well-publicised case of child abuse by several members of staff for over 30 years
In 2012 Mark Standish, was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment at Reading Crown Court after being found guilty of four counts of indecently assaulting a pupil. Perversely Standish wrote a book called ‘Suffer the Little Children: The Scandal of Crookham Court’, in which he told of 12 years of mismanagement and appalling conditions at the school.
Before conviction Standish went on to build a respectable career which included becoming a producer for BBC’s Panorama, senior research fellow at Durham University, and then worked for the United Nations in Kosovo.
A bit of history.
Crookham Court stands on the former site of Crookham manor house, built around the start of 14th century and destroyed in 1543; the construction of the current building started around 1850 and continued in two more phases over the next fifty years.
The property played many roles, as a manor house then a junior school and then school for the children of the Military serving at Greenham Common. It was abandoned for some time after the US Air Force and then purchased in 1961 when it was used as a boarding school until 1990. In 1988 there was a well-publicised case of child abuse by several members of staff for over 30 years
In 2012 Mark Standish, was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment at Reading Crown Court after being found guilty of four counts of indecently assaulting a pupil. Perversely Standish wrote a book called ‘Suffer the Little Children: The Scandal of Crookham Court’, in which he told of 12 years of mismanagement and appalling conditions at the school.
Before conviction Standish went on to build a respectable career which included becoming a producer for BBC’s Panorama, senior research fellow at Durham University, and then worked for the United Nations in Kosovo.
