House Leader: Poppy Hamling 11MP
House Champion: Celia Hunt (see below)
School value: Community Awareness
House trip opportunity 

Margaret Powell -  it is thanks to her that Beverley looks the way it does today. She was a conservationist, campaigner and ferociously challenged any applications to change the look and feel of Beverley. She lived through the 1960’s a time when a war had been fought – it was the age of modern architecture, concrete, high rise, motorways and cars for all. There was a lot of rebuilding needed after bomb damage.  She lived in Beverley and her garden attached to her home was to be used in the Lairgate/York Road new road scheme involving the loss of a street full of historic buildings. Other plans for Beverley included creating a huge roundabout in the middle of Beverley which would have left North Bar stuck in the middle of the roundabout. As well as widening Hengate which would mean the loss of Nellie’s. Margaret was outraged by these proposed changes and after being elected as a Beverley councillor fought all of these planning applications.  Beverley is the preserved, beautiful market town you see today thanks to her.

Margaret Powell Overview (by Miss Brownell) - https://youtu.be/u4NracNkz_Y

Please see images below of Margaret Powell's time in Beverley

Margaret Powell's daughter Barbara Powell visiting Beverley High School

House Champion for Margaret Powell House. - Celia Ellis.

I was born in 1952, the 3^rd child in a family of 4 children and Margaret Powell was my Mother. We lived in Hertfordshire until I was 10, then moved to Hampstead, to live in my Grandfather’s house. When he died we moved to Beverley and lived at 61 North Bar Within.

I went to St Mary’s RC Grammar School in Hull where I completed my O and A levels. My brother who was younger than me was sent to boarding school. So for 2 years  from 1968  -1970 I was the only child living at no 61 while Margaret was a councillor.

I trained and qualified as a teacher for “severely subnormal children” (now known as  SEN children with severe, profound and complex learning difficulties). I  taught pupils from 2 to 19 years in various special schools in Dunstable, Doncaster, Barnsley, Exeter and Southampton.

I have 2 children and before they started school I was a “stay at home Mum” who ran a playgroup. Once they went to school I became a supply teacher in Special and Primary schools until I returned to teaching full time in a Special School in Exeter. I did a part time degree course in “multi-sensory impairment” whilst also teaching full time and gained a Bachelor of Philosophy Degree in 2000. When I first trained there were no degree courses in Special Education.

This degree enabled me to become Deputy Head of a Special School in Southampton. I retired in 2008 and with my husband; Graham; we bought an olive grove and house in Spain. So now I help tend the olive trees and harvest the fruit to make olive oil!  We now live in both England and Spain so have the best of both worlds!

Margaret Powell in Beverley

In 1964 Margaret Powell moved into 61 North Bar Within

1965-1966 - Plans to change the layout of and roads in Beverley 

Margaret Powell attending a meeting to look at the roads of Beverley and proposed changes 

 

Houses bought by Margaret Powell to prevent them being knocked down - 14 Hengate purchased December 1966 

75 and 79 Minster Moorgate purchased March 1969 

'New uses for Old Buildings' was the title of an article wrote by Margaret Powell. In it she writes about her transformation of the empty and neglected former brewery building in Ladygate into a headquarters for the Girls Venture Corps. She also fought to save the Friary and in September 1970 she proposed its conversion into a Youth Hostel. Of course, she did not work alone, and others, including Mrs Elisabeth Hall (a former Biology teacher at Beverley High School) fought to preserve Beverley. Mrs Hall was Chair of the Beverley Friary Preservation Trust and was involved in its conversion to a youth hostel. 

 

Margaret Powell died at her home Trewoofe, Lamorna on the 21st November 2014. Beverley has much to thank her for.