Ashford Police Training Centre
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
from 1973 to its closure in 2006. It was additionally known as Grosvenor Hall after the nineteenth century building at the heart of the centre in Kennington, Ashford
Ashford, Kent
Ashford is a town in the borough of Ashford in Kent, England. In 2005 it was voted the fourth best place to live in the United Kingdom. It lies on the Great Stour river, the M20 motorway, and the South Eastern Main Line and High Speed 1 railways. Its agricultural market is one of the most...
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
.
History
Grosvenor Hall was originally called Bockhanger Hall and built in 1875 by James S. Burra (1838–1911), an Ashford banker. Burra was a keen arboristArborist
An arborist, or arboriculturist, is a professional in the practice of arboriculture, which is the cultivation, management, and study of individual trees, shrubs, vines, and other perennial woody plants...
and the Hall was surrounded a collection of trees (many of which were destroyed in the storm of 1987). In 1913 the Hall and estate were purchased by Percy H. Jones who converted it into a tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
sanatorium. He transferred patients from a sanatorium called Grosvenor House in Sandgate
Sandgate
Sandgate can be:*Sandgate, Kent*Sandgate Castle*Sandgate, Queensland*Sandgate, New South Wales, a suburb of Newcastle, New South Wales*Sandgate, Vermont*Electoral district of Sandgate, Queensland, Australia...
, Kent and renamed Bockhanger Hall to Grosvenor Hall. During its time as a sanatorium a notable patient was Simone Weil
Simone Weil
Simone Weil , was a French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist.-Biography:Weil was born in Paris to Alsatian agnostic Jewish parents who fled the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. She grew up in comfortable circumstances, and her father was a doctor. Her only sibling was...
, the poet and philosopher, who died there on 24 August 1943.
Advances in antibiotics following the Second World War gradually made tuberculosis sanatoriums obsolete. Grosvenor Hall closed as such in 1955, became a private clinic from 1956 to 1958 and then a conference centre until 1961 when it was purchased by the Metropolitan Police
Metropolitan police
Metropolitan Police is a generic title for the municipal police force for a major metropolitan area, and it may be part of the official title of the force...
for use as a cadet training school. New classrooms and dormitory blocks were constructed in the estate. During this period Metropolitan Police cadet training was split between Hendon
Hendon Police College
Hendon Police College is the principal training centre for London's Metropolitan Police Service. Founded with the official name of the Metropolitan Police College, the college is today officially called the Peel Centre, although its original name is still used frequently...
and Ashford but in 1972 was moved completely to Hendon.
The Grosvenor Hall estate was purchased by the Home Office for use as a regional training centre on 1 January 1973 and was officially opened by Mark Carlisle
Mark Carlisle
Mark Carlisle, Baron Carlisle of Bucklow QC DL PC was a Conservative British politician and was Member of Parliament for Runcorn 1964-1983 and Warrington South 1983-1987...
, the Secretary of State for the Home Office on 6 July 1973. Staff, including the first commandant, were moved from a training centre at Nutfield in Surrey which was closed down. To begin with Ashford was used for continuation courses (see below) the initial training being provided at Sandgate in Kent and Eynsham Hall near Oxford. However Sandgate closed in 1975 and Eynsham Hall closed on 22 May 1981 consolidating all probationer training for the south east region at Ashford.
In 2006 police training in England and Wales underwent a significant change. All initial training was de-regionalised and became non-residential. Ashford PTC and the other remaining regional training centres, Aykley Heads in Durham
Durham
Durham is a city in north east England. It is within the County Durham local government district, and is the county town of the larger ceremonial county...
, Bruche
Bruche Police National Training Centre
The Bruche Police Training Centre was a training complex for probationary police officers in the United Kingdom. It trained many thousands of officers over a period of around sixty years, until its closure in May 2006. The site in a suburb of Warrington was operated by CENTREX, the 'Central...
in Warrington
Warrington
Warrington is a town, borough and unitary authority area of Cheshire, England. It stands on the banks of the River Mersey, which is tidal to the west of the weir at Howley. It lies 16 miles east of Liverpool, 19 miles west of Manchester and 8 miles south of St Helens...
, Cwmbran in Wales, Ryton in Ryton-on-Dunsmore
Ryton-on-Dunsmore
Ryton-on-Dunsmore is a village and civil parish in the Rugby district of Warwickshire, and is south-east of Coventry, England. The 2001 census recorded a population of 1,672 in the parish. The A45 dual carriageway passes through the village....
and Shotley
RNTE Shotley
RNTE Shotley, known in the Royal Navy as HMS Ganges, was a naval training establishment at Shotley, near Ipswich in Suffolk. Starting in 1905, it trained boys for naval service until it closed in 1976, following the raising of the school leaving age from 15 to 16...
in Ipswich
Ipswich
Ipswich is a large town and a non-metropolitan district. It is the county town of Suffolk, England. Ipswich is located on the estuary of the River Orwell...
were closed.
As of August 2009 the site has been redeveloped as an education and adventure centre catering for 7-17 year olds.
Training
During the first two years of their service police officer recruits in England and Wales were known as probationers and in this period the regional training centres such as Ashford provided them with standardised initial training. This took the form of a 10 week (extended to 14 weeks in 1983) course started on the second week of an officer's service. On successful completion the officer spent approximately 18 months working at a station back in their force before returning for a two week continuation or final course.Training was mainly provided by Sergeants on secondment from the same region as the recruits. It included law, physical fitness, running, self defence, swimming, life saving, first aid, and drill. Ashford PTC employed a full time drill sergeant. Weekly examinations and fitness tests were conducted and the initial course concluded with a formal passing out parade to which friends and relatives were invited.
Police forces trained
- Hampshire ConstabularyHampshire ConstabularyHampshire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing Hampshire and the Isle of Wight in southern England.The force area includes the cities of Winchester, Southampton and Portsmouth...
- Kent PoliceKent PoliceKent Police is the territorial police force for Kent in England, including the unitary authority of Medway.-Area and organisation:The force covers an area of with an approximate population of 1,660,588 . The Chief Constable is currently Ian Learmonth, who was appointed in 2010 and is the former...
- Sussex PoliceSussex PoliceSussex Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing East Sussex, West Sussex and City of Brighton and Hove in southern England. Its head office is in Lewes, Lewes District, East Sussex.-History:...
- Surrey PoliceSurrey PoliceSurrey Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing the county of Surrey in the south of England.The force is led by Chief Constable Mark Rowley and has its headquarters at Mount Browne, Guildford, Surrey...
- Essex PoliceEssex PoliceEssex Police is a territorial police force responsible for policing the county of Essex in the east of England.It is one of the largest non-metropolitan police forces in the United Kingdom, employing approximately 3,600 police officers and operating across an area of over and with a population of...
- City of London PoliceCity of London PoliceThe City of London Police is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the City of London, England, including the Middle and Inner Temple. The service responsible for law enforcement within the rest of Greater London is the Metropolitan Police Service, a separate...
- Royal Parks Police
- British Transport PoliceBritish Transport PoliceThe British Transport Police is a special police force that polices those railways and light-rail systems in Great Britain for which it has entered into an agreement to provide such services...
- States of Jersey PoliceStates of Jersey PoliceThe States of Jersey Police is the professional police service of Jersey. It was established in its current form by the Police Force Law, 1974 and consists of around 240 officers....
- Guernsey PoliceStates of Guernsey Police ServiceThe States of Guernsey Police Service is the local police force for the Crown dependency of Guernsey. In addition to providing police for the island of Guernsey itself, the Guernsey Police also provides detachments for the islands of Alderney, Herm and Sark...
- Hertfordshire ConstabularyHertfordshire ConstabularyHertfordshire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the county of Hertfordshire in England. Its headquarters is situated in Welwyn Garden City...
- Buckinghamshire ConstabularyBuckinghamshire ConstabularyBuckinghamshire Constabulary was the Home Office police force for the county of Buckinghamshire, England, until 1968.Buckinghamshire Constabulary was established in 1857. It later absorbed Buckingham Borough Police and Chepping Wycombe Borough Police...
- Cambridgeshire ConstabularyCambridgeshire ConstabularyCambridgeshire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the ceremonial county of Cambridgeshire in the United Kingdom. In addition to the non-metropolitan county, the Police area includes the city of Peterborough, which became a unitary authority area in...
- Thames Valley PoliceThames Valley PoliceThames Valley Police, formerly known as Thames Valley Constabulary, is the territorial police force responsible for policing the Thames Valley area covered by the ceremonial counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire....
Commandants
The officer in charge of the training centre was known as the Commandant. The following officers held this post:- 1 Jan 1973 - Superintendent James Kirk
- 1979 - Chief Superintendent Blenkin
- 1982 - Chief Superintendent Hambleton, Essex Police.
- 1992 - Chief Superintendent Lewis