Ystradgynlais & District

In 1954, Maesydderwen School completed substantial new extensions and was organised as a Comprehensive School for the district. This meant that Gurnos Secondary Modern Boys School and Ynyscedwyn Secondary Modern Girls School merged their secondary pupils into Maesydderwen, and were henceforth solely organised as primary schools.

Until that point Gurnos Secondary Modern Boys School had produced a school magazine, and we shall be looking at the Summer 1949 issue both for what it can tell us about the school, and for the local historical research that it included.

The editorial for the magazine, named Y Gurnossydd includes some interesting information reporting on the local historical research project of the school and that it intended to compile it into a booklet to be calleed 'Gurnos Surveyed', also talking about the boys who have left the school to move into industrial work, and that at that time the school did not possess a cricket pitch.

An interesting thing to note is the difference between the image of Gurnos School as displayed on the masthead of the magazine in 1949, and the building that we observed when we took photographs in 2015.

Somewhere along the way, Gurnos School seems to have lost its bell tower!

Read more information about Gurnos School taken from Y Gurnosydd - Gurnos School Life 1949.

All copyright remains with the original copyright holder, and all original research is copyright Val Trevallion, YEARGroup and is put online as a free community project.

You can contact the Ystradgynlais and Ystalyfera History and Heritage websites by emailing: webdesign@wolfianpress.com
or Val Trevallion by emailing yeargroup@hotmail.co.uk.