A reader has enquired about Clarendon School. This wasn’t in Rhyl town; it was at Kinmel Hall in St George near Abergele. The card above (TOP) was presumably printed before all had been agreed because Clarendon was a private boarding school for girls.Clarendon had started in 1898 in Worcestershire. Twenty Pickfords vans moved the school to Kinmel Hall in April 1948 and there it stayed until 1975 when a fire forced another move. Eventually, Clarendon ended up merged with the co-educational Monkton Combe School in Bath.
The full colour picture of Kinmel Hall is dated 2000. The copyright belongs to the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW) and their web site is a must-see: http://www.rcahmw.gov.uk/.
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MON 21st DEC 2009 UPDATE: Mrs Jean Bray (was Ross) has lived in Bodelwyddan for 82 years and comes to Rhyl shopping a couple of times a week. Mrs Bray says Clarendon was a Quaker girls' school and before that, Kinmel Hall was a convalescent home for soldiers (higher ranks) during World War Two.
Before the war it had been a boys' school, which makes sense of the old postcard shown above. Mrs Bray couldn’t remember the name of the boys’ school as we stood there freezing in Rhyl bus station, but she has promised to let me know when she remembers.
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