The Winchester School District was established formally in June 1892, and a school building operated on the northwest quarter of 23-15-13 west of the Principal Meridian, in what is now the Municipality of Glenella-Lansdowne. After the school closed in June 1967, the building remained at the site. Vacant and deemed a public hazard, it was burned down in 2012. The site was donated to the Lansdowne Heritage Resources and Tourism Committee by owners Don and Vivian Collins, who had purchased the site after the school closed.
Among the teachers who worked at Winchester School through the years was Ruth Emisch (1965-1967).
Winchester School (no date) by C. K. Rogers
Source: Archives of Manitoba, School Inspectors Photographs,
GR8461, A0233, C131-1, page 112.
Among those shown in this group of Winchester School students are Laraine Post, Irvine Brown, Arthur Post, Yvonne Brock, Kenneth Brock, Patsy Ford, Sylvia Hume, and Shirley Ford (Spring 1946)
Source: Arthur Post
The Winchester School building appears at the top of this aerial view (circa 1960)
Source: Arthur Post
The former Winchester School building (circa 1986)
Source: Historic Resources Branch, Public School Buildings Inventory, slide 567.
The former Winchester School building (circa 1986)
Source: Historic Resources Branch, Public School Buildings Inventory, slide 568.
Sign at the entrance to the former Winchester School site (July 2012)
Source: Gordon Goldsborough
Site at the former Winchester School building, burned in early 2012 (July 2012)
Source: Gordon GoldsboroughSite Coordinates (lat/long): N50.29899, W99.16895
denoted by symbol on the map above
One Hundred Years in the History of the Rural Schools of Manitoba: Their Formation, Reorganization and Dissolution (1871-1971) by Mary B. Perfect, MEd thesis, University of Manitoba, April 1978.
Browsing Through the Years: Plumas and District, 1876-1976 by Plumas and District History Committee, 1976, page 45.
Over the Rainbow: Memories of a Country School Teacher by Ruth Emisch, 1993.
A Study of Public School Buildings in Manitoba by David Butterfield, Historic Resources Branch, Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism, 1994, 230 pages.
“Lansdowne’s Winchester School commemorated,” Neepawa Banner, 27 July 2012, page 7.
We thank Arthur Post, a former student of Winchester School, for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 11 August 2023
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