With the Prince of Wales only a memory, let’s take a look around the inside of what used to be.
Inside the front lobby looking back towards the front doors.
Big heavy old oak doors, they sure don’t build schools like this. At one time the stairs split, with a set leading to the basement, and one leading to the first floor. The stairs to the basement were long ago blocked off, and left a blank wall in its place.
After climbing the stairs to the first floor, a look to the east down the corridor.
The same view from the other end of the hall.
Inside one of the first floor classrooms. This one had survived and was in pretty good shape.
Another view of the same classroom, looking at the chalkboard and doorway.
A detail shot of the doorway.
The school was built in four phases. The original school, contained four classrooms, two on each floor. It was built around 1918. An addition was added to the east end of the building in 1926, and one on the west end in 1927. Some time later the gym was added (1970’s?).
In this shot we see some of the institutional Gothic architecture used in the 1927 staircase on the west side of the school.
A view of the west staircase.
Looking out over the parking lot from the broken window in the west stairs.
Tomorrow the tour continues..
I like the second classroom pic for some strange reason!
So where’s all the water damage you spoke of in the previous posts? All I see is paint peeling from the ceiling because it wasn’t heated in the winter. Real water damage are holes from huge chucks of plaster falling down and broken trusses and joists hanging awkwardly from the ceiling. From these pictures, it looks like it could have been easily rehabbed. Peeling paint and some broken windows didn’t make this a good candidate for the wrecking ball IMO.
Would have made a wonderful living space for artists, film makers, musicians etc. With the high ceilings, concrete floors, large classrooms just right for artists studios.
does anyone know when the school closed?
It closed in 1993. It was a beautiful building. I drove by the site this morning. In a way, it’s easier to look at the empty space than to see the old building so neglected.
It could have been re-used in so many ways and it is really disgraceful that of all places, a University could not lead the way in this situation.
It’s really too bad that the U either couldn’t or wouldn’t incorporate at least some of the facade into their new building. They have so few really picturesque buildings and this could have been an excellent opportunity.
from am800 today
” It’s out with the old and in with the new at Princess Anne Public School. Demolition begins today to make way for the new, environmentally-friendly Dr. David Suzuki School on Raymond Avenue. Demolition is expected to take about 3 weeks and 95% of Princess Anne will be recycled. Students have been moved to W. D. Lowe High School until the new school is built.”
So I wonder if W.D Lowe will meet the same ultimate fate as Prince of Wales once the students are returned to their new school?? That would be a shameful.
JBM — It wouldn’t suprise me in the least if they did the same thing to Lowe… A nice big building, Lowe has room for almost 2000 students, has a pool, two gyms, a full machine shop, auto shop, wood working shop, an elevator for mobility-challenged students that they installed inexpicably about a year before they closed it. It even has a full shooting range in the basement.
These days having all of those features, coupled with the age of the building seems to be in the old place’s detriment. It just boggles my mind to see that its fine as a temporary site for elementary students, but not as a full-fledged high school.
It almost seems more efficient if they would re-open Lowe as a trade school again, sort of going back to what it was built for in the first place. It would be a good way of having all of Windsor’s technical and mechanical trades/apprenticeship students in a central location on 2 bus lines (three if you count the bit of a hike to the Walkerville 8.
I went to that school the last four years it was open, and I still cannot understand why the school was closed in the first place, other than the fact that closing it looked good on paper. I simply cannot see how all avenues were explored by the Board of Education and they still elected to close the place, despite a massive public/student outcry.
Do not blame the U for not perserving historic buildings. They still have rhe old Lolaws store next to the Seven Elvin, it just dependes on it historic value.Fities era supermarket or
good looking building.
i don’t know richard, i hope your being sarcastic. most universities or collages seem to treasure the neighbourhoods that surround them and incorperate the usually very old homes INTO the campus….not wipe them off the map for surface lot after surface lot after surface lot. why in the world can’t they build a parking garage???? that had better be the very next thing that occupies the site of this school, or a new building of some kind. if it’s just another regular ass parking lot then it’s just a massive waste.