Hilary worked at Wensum Lodge from 1999 to 2013 initially as a tutor and then became the manager of the Learning Support Service. She talks of her memories of working there and the building itself.
My name’s Hilary Hanbury. I worked for the Norfolk Adult Education Service for 26 years, 14 of which were based at Wensum Lodge.
Moving from Little Plumstead Hospital to Wensum Lodge
I began as a tutor and later became the manager of the Learning Support Service at Wensum Lodge. This was established in 1984 when we managed to get funding. Initially we worked from Little Plumstead Hospital with four tutors and four learning support staff. Then in the late 1990s, Little Plumstead Hospital was closed with its residents moved into community settings and the Learning Support Service was moved to Wensum Lodge and became a countywide service. Over the years we grew from four tutors to around 50 tutors and about 1,500 learners countywide.
When we first moved to Wensum Lodge, we were based in a very small back-office – about 10 feet by 10 feet, downstairs in the stable block off the Crown Room. I remember crawling about on the floor sorting out files because there just wasn’t enough space. That was obviously not suitable so for a year or two, we were actually in the vanguard of working from home. But it wasn’t really heard of in those days that you worked part-time from home and part-time in the office, but we all had our little RAM tokens and worked from home for various times during the week.
Being in the Eyrie
As a countywide service, we would get tutors coming in, so you can imagine in a room 10 feet by 10 feet, life was quite difficult for us. Eventually, John Aitken, our Head of Service, decided we needed a bigger space. So, we set up the three offices in the old Music House, which is the oldest part of Wensum Lodge.
I think it dates from about the 13th or 14th century. It’s very old anyway and very rickety as well. Our offices were right at the very top, so we were sort of in the eyrie. We could look out over the rest of the site and hear the music from the football ground. We heard Elton John without having to go and see him. The offices were accessed by two rows of very rickety little stairs, very rickety. We had one lot of stairs going up to the first office, and then we went through the first office into the other two. Our fire escape, on the other side, was very, very narrow, so we all had to make sure that we didn’t eat too much, get too fat and get stuck in it, because that would have been appalling. However, many of our learners were in wheelchairs or had other mobility problems and couldn’t get up the stairs so we always had to book rooms in the stable block if we had to interview anyone.
‘This is me’
We offered a programme called ‘This Is Me’, which focused upon advocacy skills and confidence building. The only other courses available at the time were entry-level literacy and numeracy, which weren’t really appropriate. We held classes on the ground floor in Wensum Lodge because not only the learners but also a couple of the learning support staff had mobility issues. Other classes were held in small village halls all around the county with tutors based in North Norfolk or King’s Lynn or elsewhere. So we were always travelling around, and it was sometimes very difficult because you’d go in in the morning and you’d have a very good parking spot and then you had to go up to North Norfolk and when you came back there was nowhere to park. But parking was free which was very lucky, most jobs in Norwich didn’t have free parking. I think they did start charging for parking after I left.
The ’This is Me’ programme led in some cases to people going on to get GCSEs, A-Levels, and also first degrees. In the opinion of a lot of people, especially those who supported these groups, the Learner Support Team was the true leader. It offered non-traditional learners opportunities that they’d never had before, because there was nothing available for them, apart from basic literacy and numeracy classes. I went on from being a tutor to lead the Learner Support Team in 2008 until I took on the role of an Equality and Diversity Officer.
Change of focus
Then in 2010, a new Head of Service made the decision to focus on funding the young NEET learners, those who were not in education or training. At Wensum Lodge we became more college-focused, and we had a huge group of young learners. Wensum Lodge hadn’t really seen that before. Previously Wensum Lodge tended to cater for older people going to evening classes and that sort of thing. So again, we went on to having learner groups with learning difficulties and then to having a lot of young learners. We continued to provide tutors to support those learners in mainstream classes but because we’d lost the funding for supporting the learners in smaller classes which for some people who had not been in a learning environment before or with severe autism was very important, we had to focus on survival, really.
We had a little bit of notice of the funding being stopped. I think the problem was that they wanted more ‘bang for their buck’. And even though the lovely programme, ‘This is Me’ was accredited, we had to, in a way, fit our ‘square pegs into round holes’ to get the funding. But we did it, and all the programmes were accredited. Learners received their certificates to say they’d reached a certain level – entry level, or level one and two.
But then the funding focus shifted to young learners and getting the kids that had just left school and had nowhere to go – no qualifications, no particular route to college or wherever. So, we lost our big learner group although many moved on to different organisations with different funding models. They continued to learn but it was no longer accredited which is a shame because it’s good to do some work and get something in the form of a certificate of recognition to say you’ve done it
Retirement
I retired in 2013 and I’m sad to see Wensum Lodge no longer plays a part in supporting learners. It was a focus. A lot of people used it as a jumping off point to go on to further education. I have no idea what’s going to happen to it now, but it would be nice to see it still as a learning base, if you like, or something more focused towards improvement of knowledge in some way.
I don’t think the Music House is actually condemned, but you’re not allowed to go in it at all. So, we were, as I say, on creaky staircases all the time I was there. But we never thought about it. We just thought, you know, here we are, we’ve got rooms, we can offer all these learners some provision, and we just got on with it. But to have something there, it’s got to have a function of some kind. They would have to put an awful lot of money into the Music House to make it viable. But they did it with the Dragon Hall, didn’t they? So, I’m ever hopeful.
Taking advantage of the classes on offer
I myself attended creative writing classes at Wensum Lodge, because as a tutor, you got 50% off the cost and a free course. So, I did creative writing and an upholstery course. I’ve actually got a couple of pieces I’ve covered, and a book in the kitchen that I wrote. So, it worked for me. When I was attending classes, I think there were about 10 and 15 people in the classes. I don’t think you could have got more than 15 in for the upholstery classes because obviously we all had large pieces of furniture or whatever. But there were some really good tutors there, very friendly, always made you feel welcome. And even if you weren’t able to do something, they always encouraged you to do your very best.
Jurnet’s Bar, underneath the building, was lovely. We often used to go there for meetings and a drink at the same time.
There was a building opposite the Music House where they did all the art and craft classes. My daughter, who’s a sculptor, ran classes for mainstream adult education. So, we’ve sort of kept it in the family, really.
Good memories
On the whole, working at Wensum Lodge was a very positive experience. I think it’s been through a number of changes, there have been different Heads of Service and lots of restructures, like everything else in county councils. But, I think everybody I know who worked there has some really good memories. And I miss going in there and seeing it because it’s such a beautiful old building.
I wasn’t involved with Wensum Lodge when the decision was made to close it but one of the girls that I interviewed to help with the admin work was there at the time. She rose to become the Learner Support Manager. She came into our service with dyslexia and little confidence, and we helped build her confidence. Very often I say to my friend, ‘She’s done so well to get where she did because she had very little confidence when she first came, and she ended up being the Learner Support Manager.’ So that was nice. She was there when it closed down, and reported back about what was happening.
I think a lot of people were quite sad to see it go really, because a lot of people have got really good memories and are grateful for what they were given from Wensum Lodge and the staff there. The tutors and learner support staff and admin staff, everybody, they were all there to help, really. And it was such a lovely building to learn in. You could be by the river; you could sit and have a coffee after your class and it was a very social place to be.
I do still meet up with friends who worked with me there in the early days, in the ‘glory days’, we like to call them, and we have lunch and talk about what we’re doing now and what we did then and how lovely it was. I’ve got good memories, really, of Wensum Lodge.
Hilary Hanbury talking to WISEArchive on 8th April 2025 in Upton, Norfolk. © 2025 WISEArchive. All Rights Reserved.
