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When the Bath Academy of Art opened in September 1946 some activities were carried out at Corsham Court. There were some painting studios on the first floor and the Chinese Room, which was used for seminars, with next door to it, the college library. Students and staff ate in the dining room on the ground floor, surrounded by family portraits by Reynolds, Gainsborough and others. The entrance to the short drive leading to Corsham Court is flanked by buildings on either side dating from c.1600. On the right a riding school was converted to a sculpture studio and on the left the stables were made into studios for fabric printing, lithography and lettering. A barn was soon converted (1948) to form a larger painting studio and lecture hall.
By good fortune two large Georgian country houses near Corsham were available and acquired by the Academy; they were Beechfleld, about one mile north west of Corsham and Monks Park about two miles to the south east. Both had been occupied by the armed forces during the war and huts had been built in the grounds of each which gradually became vacant as families of servicemen moved out. Monks Park had been occupied by the Navy who had treated the building with respect, so that it was soon in use as a women’s hostel. A theatre was installed at the end of the dining room, two large reception rooms were used for seminars and a music room. The Army had treated Beechfleld badly. The main staircase had been destroyed, and so the house was not ready as a men’s hostel for a year or two; at first, they lived in lodgings in the town. But some huts at Beechfield were soon put into use as painting studios, a pottery was set up in the stables and very much later a new sculpture studio was made. William Scott made a large relief sculpture for the common room there. When the Bath School of Art moved to Corsham in 1946 and became the Bath Academy of Art, the premises at 99 Sydney Place were retained as a branch of the Academy which continued to run part time and evening classes there. The premises were enlarged in the mid I950s by the acquisition of No 100 Sydney Place. The Junior School of the Art College became the Bath Art Secondary School at 101 Sydney Place under the control of the Bath Educational Authority. About three or four times as many students studied on the teacher training course as on the National Diploma in Design course, about 50 students in all were accepted each year. Producing teachers rather than 'artists' would have fitted in well with Ellis's idea that people trained in his School would have a livelihood, not join a dole queue and have to fall back on teaching only as a last resort. Furthermore, Ellis was a visionary and wanted to produce a revolution in seeing in the population: this was to come about by the young |
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