To mark Red Maids’ 380th year, 600 junior and senior students gathered on the Bristol school’s 12-acre site this month and were guided into groups to form three giant digits making the number “380”.
The girls were then photographed and filmed from the sky using modern drone technology.
The photograph was taken on the same date in September 1634 when the Bristol Common Council met to discuss the establishment of the school – or the Red Maids’ Hospital as it was first known – stipulating the “girls to be put in by the middle of October next at farthest.”
A number of current students were celebrating their own birthdays on this same significant date in the school’s history. Fourteen-year-old, Clarissa Leung, said: “I was surprised to find out that the date of my birthday was so important in my school’s history.”
After taking part in the big photograph, Maddie Nairn, who turned sixteen on the day, said: “It was good fun and will be a memorable part of my 16th birthday.”
Red Maids’ is the oldest surviving girls’ school in the country and has special permission each November to process through Bristol from St Nicholas’ Church to Bristol Cathedral in memory of its founder, John Whitson.
