ANYONE with memories of Shipton Street Infant School is invited to a farewell tea party to mark the closure of the York school this summer.

Shipton Street, which was opened in 1891, will become the infant end of the new Clifton Green Primary School from September, when it merges with nearby Kingsway Junior School.

The building will remain in use for another year, while construction work takes place at Kingsway, but staff at Shipton Street have decided to hold a tea party on July 18 to mark its official closure.

They are inviting anyone who has had connections with the school over the years to drop in.

Head teacher Gill McGinty said: "We thought this would be a chance for people locally to say a fond farewell. A lot of people came here as children and they can have a look round the school and the gardens."

The school already has a stock of log books and photographs, some of which were gathered together in the school's centenary year of 1991.

Mrs McGinty said former pupils and friends were welcome to loan their old photos of school life to help form a display.

The school, off Burton Stone Lane, started its life as the city's first Board School in 1891. Until then education was provided by charities, churches and private schools.

It was designed by architect Walter Brierley and was intended to house 220 infants, 220 girls and 220 boys.

Over the next 50 years the senior boys and girls moved to other schools, and in 1946 the school was divided into a junior school and an infant school.

Then in 1970, the junior children moved to the new school at Kingsway and in 1973 a nursery class was set up.

The latest move, to merge the infant school with Kingsway, as the school-age population began to decline, coincided with the retirement of former head teacher Delyse Jones.

Mrs McGinty, who has been head teacher for a year, will move back to St Paul's Nursery in September.

The deputy head teacher of the new Clifton Green Primary, Jean Calverley, will be based at the Shipton Street building from September.

No firm proposals have yet been put forward by the council as to the future of the building after summer 2002.

- The tea party runs from 2.30pm until 5.30pm on Wednesday, July 18.

- Pupils who went to Joseph Rowntree School in New Earswick, York, between 1972 and 1977, are invited to a school reunion. The event is being organised for Monday, July 23.

If you remember Lynne Blackburn, Jayne Hewitson and Linda Friend and would like to go along ring Lynne on York 491262 mob 07714644399 or Linda on York 425565, mobile 07929527630.