St Crispin’s was opened on April 14, 1953 and was the first school to be built in Wokingham since 1906. It was called St. Crispin’s after the patron saint of shoemakers to show its links with craft and technology.
The school was built for the Ministry of Education on a field called Plantation, and was a prototype for post-war school buildings, with the emphasis being on cost-effectiveness, fitness for purpose and timely delivery.
The design was more concerned with providing the best possible teaching and learning environment for staff and students than with extravagant external decoration. This concept extended to the furnishings and fittings and, included the provision of murals to enrich the public areas of the school. A key publication on school buildings said: “It has probably had more influence than any other British school built since the war”.
In order to create less formal environments within the school the chief architect, David Medd, involved other talented associates. These included Gerard Holthom, whose fabrics are now in the V&A museum, and who produced spectacular curtains depicting Shakespearian characters; Oliver Cox, an influential architect, town planner and artist, who painted panels in the dining room; and Cox’s friend Fred Millet, a distinguished mural artist, who painted at least five murals: Modular Girl, a series of panels on the front of the building, and the four seasons in the main interior circulation area.
In the 1970s, the head teacher removed a number of the art panels and painted over the murals, to stress the town’s and the school’s new progressive direction. It was not until the current millennium that the murals representing Summer and Autumn were restored and the one for Spring repainted.
In 2012 a multi-million pound extension was built to meet the town’s growing population and in recognition of St Crispin’s reputation as a “High Performing Specialist School”
St Crispin has Grade II listed status because of its importance in the history of school buildings.
In the associated black and white photograph foreground there is the mark of a crater where a German aerial torpedo fell in the war, when the field was used as an emergency airfield.
Because of its contribution to Wokingham’s heritage, this building is part of the Wokingham Society’s Blue Plaque Trail. A leaflet giving details of all of the buildings on the Trail can be obtained from the Wokingham Town Hall Information Centre and Wokingham Library. An electronic version is available from www.wokinghamsociety.org.uk The Trail is also available on a downloadable App called Wokingham Town History.
Wokingham Town Museum Unique Identifier: WTH0316