Judith, the Museum Manager and John, one of our Trustees had an interesting visit to Brampton in Cumbria on Monday. John had heard on the grapevine that Brampton Community Centre was housed in an unusual historic building which it is said was the original Gymnasium for workers at HM Factory Gretna in World War One (the Devil’s Porridge Museum’s main focus is on this Factory and the 12,000 women who worked there).
Photos above show the inside of the main building today.
Judith and John managed to contact the people at the Centre and arrange for a guided visit. The building is very impressive and certainly would have been an excellent gymnasium. It is now used for woodwork and art classes. The Devil’s Porridge duo were shown around by two representatives from Brampton and an interesting discussion took place about the building: where was it located in the War (Gretna? Eastriggs?), when was it sold and transported to Brampton (1918? 1921? 1924?) and how was it transported? We will continue to explore these ideas and see what our research yields.
Below: these photographs show the corridor and inside the rooms which are said to have been the changing rooms for the Gymnasium (you can still see a bench which ran around the edge of the room).
It certainly is a well preserved and interesting building as these photographs testify. Our thanks to Brampton Community Centre for being so welcoming and helpful.
Below: this cupboard inside the building is certainly old, perhaps its lock will help us to date the building?
Below: photographs showing the building exterior including a photograph showing the building’s brick foundations.
Below: some photographs of the building’s interior.
