Centenary Reunion of Seale-Hayne Agricultural College

This is to inform you that the Seale-Haynians Club Committee is planning a whole college reunion to celebrate 100-years since students first entered Seale-Hayne in 1920. The date is Saturday 11th July this year and this is an initial invitation for you to attend, so please enter this date in your diary and inform your contemporaries, as we do not have e-mail addresses for all Seale-Haynians.

An afternoon cream tea will be held from 2-4 pm at Seale-Hayne and then the evening dinner (hot buffet) and dance will be at the Riviera Centre, Torquay from 7:00pm.

The venue is in close proximity to several hotels (The Carlton, The Toorak, The Derwent, The Victoria) should you wish to book accommodation early, and there are of course many more hotels in the area within walking (or staggering) distance.

We are determined to keep the heritage of Seale-Hayne alive and plan to make this a very memorable occasion.
More information will be posted here as we finalise the plans.

Welcome to the Seale-Hayne web site

Seale-Hayne sale

The sale of Seale-Hayne was completed on Monday 12th August 2019, with the “European Land Group” being the successful purchaser.

European Land have a keen interest in historic buildings and heritage and appear to be happy for The Seale-Haynians to maintain and develop the Old Library Heritage Room along with using the small room in Lower Lambert to store artefacts.

It is very early days yet, but we understand that the plan is for the campus to continue as a commercial centre, with the quadrangle rooms used for office space and/or educational use and other buildings to be refurbished for further renting. More specific plans will of course emerge in due course.

Although the constitution of The Seale-Haynians Club makes no provision for a formal link with another body, we will do our utmost to assist the new owners to prosper at our beloved alma mater.

R. Bartlett, Chairman

Hannahs at Seale-Hayne

Sadly, we were notified late in December 2018 that Hannahs have decided with regret that they need to relinquish their ownership of Seale-Hayne.

We were aware that since purchase in 2009, Hannahs has been struggling financially to realise their dreams at our college, and even after a fairly drastic revamp of their corporate structure over the last 18-months, they unfortunately find that they simply cannot make Seale-Hayne an economically viable arm of their business.

Bronwen Hewitt had a dream of it being a place where Hannahs ‘guests’ and the general public would mix and mingle in a stunning, caring and relaxed environment to the greater benefit of both groups. They managed to attract many tenants in the form of aligned businesses and also provide a home for several inspiring craft and artisan studios and artists, and the concept worked to some degree. But the cost of just running and maintaining Seale-Hayne was simply too great, and that was before the huge challenge of improving some of its archaic systems such as the heating, plumbing and electrics.

Hannahs, quite rightly, have decided to relieve themselves of the financial strain and worry of keeping Seale-Hayne going, to enable them to concentrate on their core business of care at their Ivybridge base.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Hannahs for the generosity shown to our club over the last 8-years and for allowing us a continued presence at Seale-Hayne as well as actively and enthusiastically supporting our activities! We are sure that all Seale-Haynians will be sorry to see Hannahs leave our college and would like to wish them every success in the future. It has been a hugely enjoyable partnership and we are sorry to see Hannahs leave.

We will of course, keep in touch with Hannahs and would encourage all Seale-Haynians to do the same. It is an inspiring charity doing remarkable work, but like all charities it is in constant need of donations. Please visit the Hannahs website and consider helping financially, as so much more is possible when funds are available!

Your committee, combined with the Seale-Hayne Future Group, will obviously keep an eye on developments and we keep our fingers crossed that the right people / business takes Seale-Hayne on eventually. Our main concern is the collection of artefacts and archive material that we have accumulated (thanks to the generosity of Hannahs) in the ‘Old Library’. We have formulated a plan in the event that we are asked to vacate the room, although we don’t expect anything to happen quickly. All Hannahs’ tenants have been assured that their tenancies will be honoured at least until renewal and likewise, we are informed that the Old Library is available to us until further notice.

Seale-Hayne Neurasthenic Hospital – First World War

SHF response to the Teignbridge District Council 20-year Core Strategy plan

News from Ray Bartlett, Chairman, December 2015

Your committee and co-opted members are pursuing the task of gathering alumni names and details to register on the S-H’ians database. Many we come across are former “lost souls” as we call them, i.e. members who forgot to inform us of their new address when moving house. Many others, mostly those attending Seale-Hayne post the 1989 merger with Plymouth University, say they were unaware there was an alumni club. Some contact us via the S-H website www.seale-hayne.com. A steady flow of alumni visit Hannahs at Seale-Hayne and leave their name and contact details on Hannahs visitors books; this is our main source. Almost without exception the ‘remarks’ written express words to the effect “so lovely to be back; some of the happiest years of my life spent here; so gratifying to see S-H put to such good use; would like to be kept in touch” Hannahs data records officer is very helpful to us by listing all the S-H’ian names from visitors books and presenting them Tom Jenkins ’56 –’59 a committee member. Tom is undertaking the task of gathering all the names for Ian Goodwin (Igg) our Membership Secretary. As a consequence of this work, our registered membership is actually increasing.

Many of you reading this may not be recorded on our database register and may know of others who are not. Accordingly, I urge you please to contact us via this website. It costs nothing to join –membership of the club is free. The only fee is for the annual The Seale-Haynian magazine, for the princely sum of £6:00 a year.

As I mentioned, many visiting S-H’ians express their delight (and relief) that our beloved Alma mater is being used for such a worthy purpose, which brings me to our host Dame Hannah Rogers Trust. (DHRT). I must make clear that there is no formal connection between DHRT and The Seale-Haynians Club; we are distinct organisations. From the beginning however, Hannahs welcomed us as ‘part of their family’ and embraced the heritage of Seale-Hayne. This attitude persists and your committee regards it very much in our interests for Hannahs to flourish at Seale-Hayne.

A part of S-H early history was the Military hospital for ‘shell-shocked’ servicemen in WW1. Hannahs decided to commemorate this by creating a ‘visually augmented’ trail around the main building, which they entitle “Safe Haven”. A headphone commentary will tell the story, directing the listener around the trail. With an I-pad one can see images of the hospital almost 100 years ago. Digital and visual artists were employed and the project cost £50K to produce. Grants were obtained from the Heritage Lottery fund and The Arts Council; the grant from the latter was applied for by The Seale-Haynians. The “Safe Haven” project is an example of the way Hannahs can generate income from harnessing the heritage of Seale-Hayne. Listening to and viewing the Safe Haven trail is free and takes about 30 minutes to walk.

We are trying to trace the descendent relatives of the patients at S-H Military Hospital in an attempt to discover what happened to those men. This is a painstaking plodding task. We need some volunteers who are adept at searching on ancestry/military archives websites for this information. Any volunteers please?
The most financially rewarding way we can help Hannahs is from the Reunions held at S-H. In February this year, James Youd (73 -76) organised a reunion of his cohorts. One hundred Seale-Haynians and spouses attended and it was a great success. In addition to the income, Hannahs staff love our reunions because, so they say, we are such good fun. They enjoy laughs at the anecdotes and storied we tell of our student days.

Following James Youd’s reunion I was ‘commanded’ to attend to the presence of the head of Hannahs ‘Bookings’ department, whereupon I was further commanded to actively promote Seale-Haynians reunions. James very kindly offered, with his reunion organising experience, to be an adviser for other Seale-Haynians reunions. Accordingly, he is helping Andrew Gabriel (1980 -?) organising a reunion in April next year. A smaller Reunion was organised in July this year by Suzie Paton (nee Evans). A 50 year anniversary reunion is being organised for 2017.

Accommodation at Seale-Hayne is very good now, with rooms in Parkinson Hall and East Block converted to en-suite accommodation. In addition there are some very swish ‘glamping’ units.

It is our intension, when finances allow, to ‘digitise’ all our archive records so they can be viewed on a touch screen in the Old Library. Ian Goodwin (Igg) has discovered a company specialising in this regard. Following a meeting with the company it became clear that the scope could be widened to incorporate the heritage and history of Hannahs and S-H in order to display it to a wider audience. Watch this space!

If you suspect from this discourse that your committee and helpers have a lot to do, you will be correct. Accordingly, we need more help; any Seale-Haynian in the South Devon area who would like to help, please contact us. The research and documentation action required for the “touch Screen” project will be considerable. Moreover, the contribution Seale-Hayne made to agriculture in the UK and indeed elsewhere should not be forgotten. It needs to be researched and recorded. This too will be a considerable task.
Finally, for the moment at least, I would like to draw your attention to “Donate” (to DHRT) on our website. As mentioned, it is in our interests for Hannahs to thrive at Seale-Hayne and a suggestion has been made to ask Seale-Haynians if they would consider signing up to donate the minimum of £2:00 a month to Hannahs. I reckon most of us would not miss £2:00 a month and although not much, lots of £2:00’s mount up.

Raymond Bartlett,

Chairman, the Seale-Haynains

Watercolour of Seale-Hayne