Henbury High School.

Henbury High School was opened in 1958 and originally called Broken Cross Secondary School for boys.

During the 1960s and 70s the school developed some what of a reputation for music and its brass band travelled all over europes capitals.

In 1979 the school became a mixed school and introduced girls into the class rooms, a year later the sixth form was also added.

1993 saw the schools governors forward a motion to be removed from council control and opted for a grant maintained operation.

Five years later the government designated the school a technology college and focused mainly on pupils with visual imparements and those who where partially blind.

Renamed Henbury High School Technology College the school now specialised in teaching technology, science, maths and ICT, by 2004 Henbury reached the top 100 schools list in the country coming in ranked at 70 on the list of top specialist schools.

The school finally closed in September 2007 and relocated a few miles down the road to the park lane campus and renamed yet again, this time under the title Macclesfield High School.

Having only been closed a few months it has already been targeted by vandals, virtually every window on the ground levels have been smashed, inside the majority of the strip lights have also been damaged and roof tiles broken.

Apart from that though the place is in exceptional condition inside with little grafitti which is very surprising given the buildings status, the only signs of grafitti are from the last pupils who attended the school, most probably done on the last day of term.

The blackboards even show the last lessons and topics covered before closure.

This was the first explore on our list set in the scenic surroundings of Macclesfield in Cheshire and also our first explore with one of the newest explorers in the North West, Tractor Pirate.

Unfortunatley we didnt spend as much time as we wanted exploring this place due to a late start plus 5 hours of daylight and another 5 sites to explore some 10 miles away! A tight schedule but we managed to do it.

This was the first time exploring a school for all of us and brought back memories from our days at school, right down to the smell of the science labs, a cool place and most enjoyable if not different explore.