Built in 1897 by Town Freeman, successful businessman and ex Mayor Robert Mather JP, the house was considered to be one of the finest in the borough. The Mather family occupied the house until its sale, by auction in 1945. The name of ‘Courtfield’ was suggested by a family friend, Rev Fr Bernard Vaughan. The Vaughan’s ancestral home in Gloucestershire was called ‘Courtfield’, it had been in the family since 1570. At a cost of £14,750 (plus £396 costs) the buildings and land were bought amid controversy. There was much disquiet about the cost and perceived competition between the college restaurant facilities and local businesses, although there was no comment about the need for a hotel & catering school.
Courtfield as a centre for Hotel & Catering was actually established in 1947, when students were transferred from the Bakery School on Park Road. Ten years earlier classes had been held in a number of venues in the town, to assist local hoteliers. An Advisory Committee was formed to investigate the establishment of a Catering Department at the College. The cost of acquiring the building and land of the Courtfield site was £14,750.
The overall cost of ‘The Experiment’ was reported to have been £60,000, which included modifications to the house and equipping it with some of the finest equipment available. Some of the silverware is still being used at the college, badged with the original Blackpool Technical College ‘BTC’. Much of the original polished copper pans that many of us remember cleaning with lemon and salt at the end of our classes, was sold off to provide replacement aluminium pans in the 1970’s. In 1949, ‘Courtfield’ was formally opened in a blaze of publicity with a Lunch for HRH The Duchess of Gloucester in June of that year.
In 1956 it was planned to extend the buildings by demolishing the Coach House at the rear. In the early days, the house was occupied by the Mathers, the Coach House housed 4 Carriages, two horses and a Coachman. The development involved the addition of ‘prefabs’ at a cost of £9000. However, the Ministry of Education had suggested a larger permanent extension which would accommodate a college refectory, to the side of the house, provided a large dining room, kitchen and servery, increasing the cost of extensions to £21,104, but offsetting the costs with revenues from sales. This became the ‘College Refectory’ and well used by staff, Students and occasionally the public.
Controversy was never far away from the headlines. Disagreements and poor communications between the Council departments in setting up the College was identified as the cause. The Gazette at the time reported that there was additional confusion in the minds of the public and Councillors regarding the Courtfield proposals and those for a new and separate Food Technology building. Very quickly, extensions were agreed, planned and developed to provide a state of the art home for ‘Blackpool Catering College’. The Gazette of 13 October 1951 headlined on the ‘Battle raging over Catering College’, there were references to ‘Frayed Tempers’, especially when College staff salary increases were proposed. Squabbles about money failed to dent the enthusiasm in neither the department nor the students. In response, The Gazette reported Mr W Rees Jones saying that his proudest moment was when one of the most vociferous critics, the Mayor Cllr Joseph Hill JP, had expressed his pride in the recent student’s results.
Text source: Fylde Coasterwebsite
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