This is why I wrote about my old school…

west-studios chesterfield

A former pupil of Chesterfield Grammar School – Oxford graduate and distinguished historian Philip Riden – tells us why he has written a new book about his old school.

ACCOUNTS of Chesterfield Grammar School have been appearing since 1878. Why write another one? It is now over 26 years since the school closed and the youngest ‘old boys’ are in their forties. Most who attend the Old Cestrefeldians’ annual reunion are much older. The school left its historic buildings on Sheffield Road fifty years ago and those to which it moved at Brookside have been extensively altered since 1967. If told that someone had written a history of the grammar school, many people would ask, ‘Where was it?’ They might also ask, ‘Why bother?’…