Schools & Colleges
L-r: Mal Lawton, Shaun Mahoney, Ashley Shipp, Matt Pullen and Danny Church with their trusty old grey Fergie
hockey pitch, a 25m swimming pool, three natural grass tennis courts, three tarmac tennis courts, netball and basketball courts.
The school’s main cricket square is located on the Main campus and, during the winter months, the outfield doubles up for the senior rugby pitch. These facilities are available for hire when not being used by the school. Latham Road offers the use of five rugby pitches, two natural turf hockey pitches and one full size artificial sand dressed pitch. In the summer, these fields provide the school with three cricket squares and an eight lane grass athletic track. After our brew, we all walked out to the senior rugby pitch to get a team picture of all the staff alongside their trusty old grey Fergie tractor, which has been in use since the 1950s. Like all independent schools, the condition of their grounds is paramount; first impressions of the school are often formed by the presentation of the grounds. On a mild November day, they were very tidy and well planted out with
a variety of plants offering plenty of shape, form and colour. Shaun Mahoney is the school
gardener responsible for maintaining all the gardens, shrubberies and flower beds, Shaun used to grow a lot of the summer and winter bedding plants in the greenhouse. However, it was rather time consuming so, under the new regime, he now buys ready grown plants for tubs, troughs and bedding schemes. He still uses the greenhouse for making up their own hanging baskets. The sports pitches were well laid out
and presented. The senior rugby team pitches commanded pride of place on the cricket outfield. Grass is mown using rotary mowers set at 75mm, however, they have not had to mow the pitches for some time due the dry weather the east of England has been experiencing. One of the first things Matt did on taking up his role was to review the working conditions and equipment the school had, as he believes that providing a good working environment is very important.
So, one of the first tasks completed was
improving the mess room facilities for his staff. They have moved into larger accommodation, releasing much more valuable space for equipment and materials. Matt has also overhauled the machine sheds, tidying them up and beginning a programme of replacing old and worn out tools and machinery. The school has invested in new mowers; a Jacobsen TR3 triple mower to replace the old trailed gang units, along with two new Protea wicket mowers for maintaining the squares. All the staff gets free meals, PPE and quality outdoor clothing. Working hours are set at 8.30am-5.00pm, with some paid overtime as required. The main cricket square has sixteen pitches, all being dressed with Ongar loam. The pitches perform reasonably well considering there is only 45-50mm depth over the indigenous soil. This was confirmed when we took some cores from the square. In both of the samples there was a distinct root break below the thatch layer.
Matt was also keen to point out that, since he took over, they have changed
DECEMBER/JANUARY 2012 PC 103
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