Melville Park School is gone, but for some the memories remain. Timothy Brown reports.
Melville Park School was controversially merged with Mosigel West School and Wyllies Crossing School in 2003 to create Elmgrove School.
As part of then-Education Minister Trevor Mallard's review of Taieri schools, the school was wound up, some buildings re-used and the site sold to developers.
The site is now 34 sections in and around Watt St, following development of the land in 2005.
Father and son Dennis and Lee Brown bought the title to the land in April 2005 for just under $1 million, 45 years after it was bought by proclamation from Mosgiel identity and promoter Joe Brown by the then education department for the sum of $5350.
Dennis Brown said at the time that ''the grandson is following through with his grandfather's dreams.
''Joe was going to develop a subdivision there in the 1960s, but he had to sell the land to the education department.''
The school opened in 1965 and the last day of school at Melville Park was on December 16, 2003.
Some of the school's buildings were bought by the Taieri Parents Centre and are still in use.
But despite the bricks and mortar being moved and the land taken over by housing, the memories of the school still remain for former pupil Bronwyn McLeary.
She attended the school in 1966 and remembered the best aspect of the school was the sense of community.
She and her friends ''all lived within 15 minutes of school''.
''I was shy at school and I liked it because it was small and you knew most of the people. It was all very personal,'' she said.
''Some of us had been friends since we were born. Those days you could go out on the street and play.''
Some of those friendships had lasted a lifetime and next year a Mosgiel schools' reunion was planned for October, she said.
''I didn't like the rest of my school years but I loved primary school,'' she said.
''I think that's when you make friends for the rest of your life.''
Ms McLeary said she was sad to see the old school's grounds developed into housing.
''I know the grounds have to be used for something ... but I thought it would have been nice to keep some of it for a playground,'' she said.
She and her son had attended the school and it had special meaning to her, especially as he had died.
''I know there has to be change but in a small town they need to leave some of the past,'' she said.
