Bayshill

Although there was, for many years, a boarding house in Parabola Road called Bayshill Lawn, the modern Bayshill is one of the newer College houses; it was created in 1969 as a senior house for day girls. Like the junior day girl houses, Bayshill was a ‘house’ in name only, with no actual premises other than a room in College, first in Fauconberg Villas (where the Bursary offices are now) and, after 1979, in the main building. Only in 1984 did the day girl houses acquire a home of their own with the opening of Eversleigh, the Day Girl Centre, in Parabola Road. Bayshill occupied part of the house, the rest being divided between Glengar and St Clare, the two junior houses then existing.

The numbers of day girls gradually increased over the years, and in 1999 it became necessary to create a third junior day girl house, which took the name Bellairs in memory of one of College’s ‘founding fathers’. At that point the natural decision was to base all three junior houses at Eversleigh. Bayshill was thus displaced, but the senior girls were better off as a result. They moved to the upper floors of nearby Bayshill Court, the tall white regency house linking St Helen’s and St Austin’s at the top of Parabola Road, where they could have their own front door and no longer share premises with the younger girls. In 2009 the house moved again, this time to the newly-refurbished lower ground floor of Fauconberg Villas. Bayshill thus found itself back in College, where it had begun 40 years previously. The girls were more than happy with the change. As they reported in the 2010 College Magazine, ‘The new Bayshill has become a fantastic house that provides us with an environment which we all enjoy spending time in’.

HOUSEMISTRESSES (AND HOUSEMASTER)

1969 Mrs A Foster
1977 Mrs D Eynon
1979 Mrs P Betenson
1980 Miss S Cleary
1982 Miss T Black
1983 Miss C Piper
1985 Miss M Struthers
1991 Mrs M Henderson (née Struthers)
1992 Miss V Paris
1999 Mrs A Lillis
2002 Mrs J Roberts
2005 Mrs A Wilson
2009 Mr V Pizzoni
2010 Mrs D Burston
2015 Ms V Brandon