Do you remember school dinners from when you were young? People may have mixed memories of the food but it was a progressive idea to offer meals to school students that came in with the Welfare State reforms of the later 1940s.
Records in the Stirling Dean of Guild collection held at the Archives give an idea when meals began to be provided by local school authorities. Plans of the new dining rooms that had to be built for the children to eat in were lodged with the local authority for approval before building work could begin. The two primary schools in Raploch were supplied with dining rooms at the same time, the plans being approved in October 1947.
These are the Plans for Raploch Primary where the dining room was built in the grounds of the existing school.
Perhaps you remember this layout of the dining room shown on this floor plan.
Raploch St Mary’s RC School had a very similar dining room, again, built in the grounds of the school.
The main meals were not actually cooked at the school but at a central kitchen situated at Causewayhead. Plans of this building, built in 1951, are also held at the Archives.
