The definitive booklet about the project is now available online!

Part of the delegate pack for the project conference, it is so comprehensive and so up-to-date that it was also used as Newsletter 3

Adobe pdf, 12 MB

So, not for the faint hearted!
(but if you're ready, Click on Picture)

Want a hardcopy?

Described by one reader as
"a PETT archival item in its own right that summates so many communities and individuals involved throughout the PETT HLF project".

Contact: Planned Environment Therapy Trust

Church Lane

Toddington near Cheltenham

Glos. GL54 5DK

United Kingdom

Ask for "The Project Brochure"

A September visit from volunteer Pat Mitchell, Hon. Sec. of the Wennington Old Scholars Association, brought to light this report of Wennington School's 21st Anniversary Party almost exactly 50 years before! The report, dated September 12th 1961, was written by Mildred Whitehouse, Hon. Sec. of the Wennington School Association, and features verbatim reminiscences by a number of people, including the ell-kknown British philosopher Professor John MacMurray. It gives a fascinating insight into the perception of a school and centre of a community which - a little over a decade later - had closed.

Click on image for full letter

No wonder people like coming to Archive Weekends!

(The menu from the recent Westhope Manor/Shotton Hall Archive Weekend)

The Cotswold Community near Ashton Keynes in Wiltshire has a rich history. It stretches back to a pre-war Cotswold farm, and its purchase and development by members of the Bruderhof Community, fleeing persecution in Nazi Germany, who then went in exile to Paraguay at the beginning of World War II because of British government fears of enemy aliens. The site and its buildings were taken over by the London Police Court Mission's Cotswold Approved School, the head of which was the charismatic warden, writer and broadcaster C.A. Joyce. The Police Court Mission transferred ownership to Wiltshire County Council, and in the late 1960s it was famously transformed into a therapeutic community under the leadership of Richard Balbernie. In more recent years it has been owned and run by NCH, now Action for Children, who are closing the site and moving the provision to another of their facilities.

On July 9th members of the Cotswold Community family - going back to members of the Bruderhof, at least one Approved School boy, early Community staff and children, and more recent staff and children - joined together to celebrate a remarkable site, community, and continuity. John Whitwell, who succeeded Richard Balbernie as Director of the Cotswold Community, and David Randolph, who began as a Governor when Richard Balbernie was Director, spoke on the occasion:

For John Whitwell, click on "play" arrow

For David Randolph, click on "play" arrow