OLD STIRLING SCHOOL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24861, 10 March 1942, Page 7

OLD STIRLING SCHOOL

DEMOLITION AND SALE (Contributed) The curtain was finally rung down on the old Stirling " Seattle" on Saturday, when Messrs Nimmo and Blair conducted a successful clearing sale of the " remains " on behalf of the vendor, Mr A. Jones. Everything was disposed of to the highest bidder. Most of the material is good for 50 years yet. The sight of the coiling, floor joists, and rafters, all of 6 x 2, some of the timber being red beech and totara, and the morticed wall plates of 5 x 3 timber, made some present-day carpenters shudder at the work involved. Even the bricks brought a good price, as all had been hand-puddled. One portion of the old school was left intact, and will be taken down and re-erected on a farm at Lovell's Flat The roofing iron also sold very well. What tragedies the old walls have witnessed, especially the cordial invitation and the reluctant acceptance of it, to sojourn awhile in the headmaster's study. One " instrument of torture " was found under the floor, together with enough marbles to stock a shop. Mr J. P. Lyall, who assisted in the demolition, spent all his school days at the old school, and while it might have given him great satisfacfon to have pulled it down then, different thoughts were present when he actually had the chance to do it. Mr Jones's mother was one of the Grigor clan attending the old school on Inch Clutha which was washed away in the big flood. She attended the opening of the new school the other day.