Glengar

Glengar first appears in the College prospectus in 1880, but it existed as a boarding house before that date. Its original location was at 21 Royal Parade, Bayshill Road (just opposite the Principal’s house), where, as early as 1871, thirty-six Ladies’ College girls were boarding in the care of a Mrs Fraser. The building was then called Elmley; why it was renamed Glengar, or by whom, we do not know. In 1895 the Glengar girls and their housemistress, Miss Allen, changed places with another boarding house and moved into nos. 5 and 6 Fauconberg Terrace, the row of six tall early Victorian houses which stood on the site of the present West Wing. In 1913, when the kindly and well-liked Miss Allen retired after 26 years, Glengar closed for refurbishment during the summer term and the girls, then numbering about 50, were distributed among other houses. In the autumn the house reopened, no longer as Glengar but as St Margaret’s.

Glengar then ceased to exist for many years, eventually reappearing in 1939 as a day girl house, along with St Clare. After 1945 these two were amalgamated, and it was only in 1959 that Glengar was permanently established as a day girl house.

There had been one or more day girl ‘houses’ since 1926, but for many years they had existed in name only, without premises of their own other than such facilities as cloakrooms and dining rooms. In September 1962 Glengar and St Clare moved into new common rooms in 2 Fauconberg Villas (previously a boarding house called St Bridget’s), where they were later joined by Bayshill, the senior day girl house created in 1969. The Glengar girls very much appreciated this move and wrote of ‘the pleasure of having a real house’, but in 1980 2 Fauconberg Villas was converted into Bursary offices, and new common rooms had to be found for the day girls in the main building. Not until 1984 did they acquire a permanent home of their own – the house now known as Eversleigh in Parabola Road. This house, originally called Marston, had been bought in 1960 for £6,000 and for most of the intervening years had served as the College Sanatorium. When it became the Day Girl Centre in September 1984 the girls themselves decided that it should take the name Eversleigh, in memory of an earlier College boarding house.

Over the years day girl numbers gradually rose until by 1999 Glengar and St Clare each had 90 girls. In September of that year Bellairs, a third junior day girl house, was founded with 30 girls from each of the existing houses. The senior girls then moved out to Bayshill Court and Eversleigh was given over entirely to juniors. In 2001, to accommodate the growing numbers, a new day girl dining room was created by building a large pavilion-style extension at the back of Bayshill Court.

HOUSEMISTRESSES

1871 (or earlier) Mrs Fraser
1880 Mrs Brady
1887-1913 Miss M Allen
1944-1945 Miss M Bowden
1959 Miss M Freeman
1964 Miss P Ball
1970 Miss J Whaite
1976 Miss C Kirk
1985 Mrs R Hope
1994 Mrs R Kaye
2008 Mrs J Ellis
2018 Mrs A Proudlock