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Postcard showing the WINTERSDORF HOTEL? Birkdale. Early 20th cen.
This was an exclusive private girls' school, eventually absorbed by Trinity Hall school in the 1920s. It was demolished in the late 1980s and hideous modern flats now occupy the site
In the 1880s it was attended by Helen Noble (b. 1877 d 1967) and her sisters. Helen later married the poet Edward Thomas, killed in April 1917 and described by Poet Laureate Ted Hughes as 'the father of us all.' Helen's memories of the school can be found in 'Helen Thomas, Time and Again. Memoirs and letters' edited by her youngest daughter Myfanwy Thomas, published by Carcanet Press, 1978.
Stone me...I went to Trinity Hall school in the 1960s, no idea about the Nanteos connection! Remember Wintersdorf wing well though, allegedly haunted by Willie and Wilhelmina Wintersdorf, their Victorian stone faces over the doorway, very Gothic.. An impressive hall and staircase used by teachers only, pupils used dingy back stairs.