RECORDS OF HURST COURT SCHOOL, ORE

Records given 15 Mar 1994 (A6262)

Hurst Court was built as a school for Dr Thomas Reed in 1863 and opened, as The College, Ore, the following year. The school became known as Hurst Court in 1866 and moved to Bournemouth in 1884, when the building became a Jesuit College for two years before reverting to its original use as a boys' preparatory school

Hurst Court was requisitioned on 24 May 1940 and accommodation was provided for the staff and 70 staff and pupils at Wrekin College at Wellington in Shropshire, where the school remained until its return to Ore in January 1946

The school closed in December 1968, and in 1970 the building was acquired by the Hastings Youth Trust, which had been established in 1967 to provide a residential conference and training centre in the town; much of its funds had been raised by sponsored walks. The centre closed at the end of the 1980s and in 1994 the trustees were involved in the sale of the building, the funds to be made available to provide grants for youth work in Hastings

These documents, which were given to the office anonymously, are the only records relating to the school held at ESRO. Their end coincides with the retirement of Richard J S Curtis, a master at the school since 1917 and headmaster from 1933

A summary history of Hurst Court written by Mrs Elizabeth Montgomery, a trustee of the Hastings Youth Trust, has been added as AMS6331/2