Chapter 8: Miss Hayhurst and Exmouth House School

The daily routine seems to have been as follows. Pupils entered by the garden gate, passing a small piece of rough ground to the right, where a few bushes grew against the wall, and one small tree. They then went round the back of the house to what is now the laundry room, which evidently had a glazed entrance door facing the back wall of the garden. The small room inside, described by Mrs Fearnside as ‘not much bigger than a porch’, was where the ‘babies’ were undressed and their coats put in a big wardrobe/cupboard. She goes on:

We turned left into the original kitchen which had a stone-flagged floor. There was an old fitted dresser with three large drawers, and a base shelf at the bottom. Plimsols were kept on the top shelf (over the drawers), and out-door shoes and wellingtons were put on the bottom. This cloakroom was always rather dark and cold. A wall, situated next to the scullery, had once housed a kitchen range but this had been taken out and a long row of pegs fixed on the wall in the archway space where the range had been (and the ceiling above still showed signs of smoke!) We sat to change our shoes on a long form placed under the row of pegs. (I believe there was another row of pegs on another wall, placed at a lower height.) From this ‘cloakroom’ there was a door leading into the original scullery, which had a very large old-fashioned beige stone sink. A gas stove had been fitted in here for school use, mainly for hot drinks.

At 9.30 every morning, the whole school assembled in the double downstairs room for prayers and two hymns. The hymns were changed on Monday mornings, and the girls’ singing was accompanied on an old piano by Miss Haffield, who taught arithmetic throughout the school. When she visited Exmouth House in 1995 Mrs Fearnside distinctly recalled how Miss Hayhurst strode in from the front hall and stood at a lectern to the right of the front fireplace; the children had to be quiet and attentive.

Lessons then ensued until there was a break for P.T. This took place every morning in the garden (unless the weather was too bad), and there was also a games period in the afternoon. The garden was asphalted to provide a playground (this took place in 1923, as was reported in the Hastings & St Leonards Observer on 24 March 1924); it had two fixed net-ball goal posts.

The Senior school lined up according to height - not age or form. Always we had to start with deep breathing exercises, considered most important by Miss Hayhurst. We did Swedish Drill, Indian Club Swinging and High Jumping, as well as the usual Physical Exercises. The main games were Stoolball and Netball.

(In another letter she referred to ‘girls practicing stool-ball batting before afternoon school’: on this occasion she had been away from the premises and, returning to Exmouth House and turning the corner at the back to get to the rear entrance, a ball hit her in her right eye, leaving her ‘hurt, frightened and crying’.)

At lunchtime, as already noted, many of the children went home. However some, including Mrs Fearnside, who lived too far away for this to be feasible, instead brought sandwiches. These were consumed in a small room reached by the flight of back stairs which went up from the scullery (now the kitchen). This room was furnished with a table and forms; it faced the back and was rather dark, especially in winter; it was also cold, in spite of a paraffin stove for heating. There was a rumour that it was haunted. Adjacent to this was another, smaller, room called ‘the wood room’. Props for plays and some P.T. and games equipment not in everyday use were stored there, together with a lot of pieces of wood and rolls of brown paper. ‘I do not remember a use for these!’, Mrs Fearnside added. She recalled that, as they were sitting in the upstairs room eating their lunch, they could look out of the window at the path going up the West Hill and they shouted at the boys who they could see going up the path en route from the Old Town to the grammar school. On another occasion, she recalls passers-by being snowballed.

At the end of the day the pupils went home, and, in winter, a mistress stood at the door to ensure that they were wearing gloves. Indeed, Mrs Fearnside noted that the weekly marks gained by each pupil, on the basis of which they were allocated their place in the class for the following week, included a maximum of 10 for deportment and 5 for being properly dressed and wearing gloves. It was very much a school for ‘young ladies’.

Exmouth House School badge

The school uniform comprised a blue blouse and a white top; in the summer, a blazer bearing an ‘EHS’ [Exmouth House School] logo on a badge, and a straw panama hat, also with the logo on a badge (Mrs Fearnside gave me a specimen of the badge, which is reproduced here). In the winter, blue caps were worn. Attached to the railings at the front of the house was a large board inscribed ‘Exmouth House School’.