IT was announced last week that three Darlington schools are going to be demolished and a £21m educational village built in Haughton to replace them.

One of the schools which is due to be bulldozed in 2005 is Beaumont Hill Special School, to the north of Darlington.

This school, with its distinctive bug-eyed classrooms, is special for more than one reason.

It is the last remnant of the early 20th Century fad of providing open-air schools for children with "anaemia, adenoids, enlargements of glands and discharges from ears".

The idea was conceived in Germany for educating TB sufferers at the beginning of the last century. When it arrived in Darlington, in 1910, the town congratulated itself on its pioneering approach, because only London and Sheffield were trying similar ventures.

It was planned to build the school near Harrowgate Hill golf course. Because of its lofty position, the area was considered to be the healthiest place in town.

Instead, the first open-air school ended up in North Lodge Park. A local carpenter constructed a wooden frame with two canvas walls. The canvas could be moved depending on the direction of the wind to shield the children - all girls - inside.

There were 20 of them, and they were taught botany, clay and cardboard modelling, and arithmetic, in which measuring the trunks of park trees played a major part.

For many of the pupils, these were the first lessons they had ever had.

Some of the girls had been prescribed rest by their doctors, so hammocks were slung between trees for them to take a nap. Parents, though, had to provide an extra coat or blanket to keep the children snug.

It was arranged for the pupils to visit Kendrew Street baths every day to have a spray bath.

But the summer of 1910 was typically English. The school opened on May 25 and closed on July 29 because of bad weather.

In 1911, the movable wooden schoolroom was wheeled over to Dodmire School, where an old stable block was converted into a lavatory.

The school was initially only open in the summer, but as the sickly girls piled on weight in 1923 it was decided to open it all year round, and boys were admitted, too.

The open-air fad swept the country, and by 1929 there were 60 such schools, with Darlington boasting a new permanent one.

It opened on July 18, 1929, off Salters Lane, on the site of today's Beaumont Hill Special School.

Costing £4,800, it was the "most far-reaching development of education for physical defectives" and there were 41 pupils "on whom health had not smiled".

There were four open-air classrooms which looked like bandstands, because in the original German experiment the classes had been held in converted bandstands. There were wooden shutters on the sides and under-floor heating.

"At least the snow will not have to be swept from the floor," noted the headmistress approvingly, which suggests the Dodmire school was very chilly.

The school day began with cocoa and brown bread. There was a midday meal followed by hot and cold showers. Then came the afternoon nap, taken whenever possible outside, with the children lying on their sides facing the teacher.

With such a crowded curriculum, it was a wonder there was time for formal teaching.

Although it was a well-intentioned concept, the selection of pupils became haphazard. One was there because she had a slight eye problem; another had a broken arm; and yet another because his brother had once suffered from tuberculosis.

In 1952 it was time for a rethink. The school was remodelled, the open classrooms being replaced with the rounded glass windows which today give Beaumont Hill its distinctive bug-eyed appearance.

These windows were still easily removable to let in the fresh air, but they were designed to catch the sun's healing rays for as long as possible every day.

There were now more than 80 pupils, with a school nurse in her own clinic and a physiotherapist on site. This holistic approach is today being expanded into an "education village" where schools will share their site with a health practice and other social services.

At break times, children were given cod liver oil, orange juice "and other health-giving foods".

In 1960, the Northern Despatch (The Northern Echo's now defunct evening sister paper) said: "The most valuable lesson pupils learn at the school for delicate children is that they do not have to look far to find someone who seems worse off than themselves. A cripple knows he can breathe freely; an asthma case knows he can walk."

In recent decades, as schooling policy has changed so that disabled pupils are, wherever possible, not excluded from mainstream education, the Salters Lane school has amalgamated with Mayfair and Glebe Road schools to form Beaumont Hill Special School for children with "special needs".

Now the policy is moving on again, and by 2005 the bug-eyed link with the rudimentary beginnings of education for children with health problems will be no more than a memory.

* If you were an open air pupil, send your memories to: Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF, email chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk