Richard Parker's Gilberd School Photos

Following the publication of Steve Turner's photos of the Gilberd from 1982, I realised that there was still another set of images of the school that remained unpublished on this website. When Eddie Ross, Richard Parker and myself were filming our virtual tour of the Gilberd back in 2021, Richard shared some black and white photos with us that he had taken in 1980. (Richard had hopped over the school gate and taken his photos one July weekend that year.)

My first thought on seeing the photos was that they would provide a lovely ending to our film - a way to take viewers right back to the school just as it was. And, with Richard's permission, that's exactly how we ended up using his images. With the exception of one or two, we have never actually published the full set here and I'm happy to correct that oversight.

Richard's photos really are quite beautiful and the empty school he captures is very different to all the activity we see in Steve Turner's images. Katy Oxton's atmospheric photos also show the school empty but by 1985 it looked almost abandoned and very different from five years earlier.

I think we are lucky to have these three outstanding sets of photos of the Gilberd from the 1980s. If you have any images of the school tucked away please do get in touch - we would be happy to scan them and share them with everyone here. You can email us at eddiesphotos@icloud.com  

My thanks again to Richard for permission to publish his photos on the website. You can visit his Gilberd Seventies Facebook Group here. 

If you click on any of the photos on this page you can view a high quality image.