FROM Blackburn exile Miss D. Heys, of Thornton-Cleveleys, comes this picture of her class at St Philip's School, near Witton Stocks, Blackburn, in 1923-4.

Miss Heys, who is pictured at the left wearing a dark dress, wonders if any of her of schoolmates recognise themselves, or remember the occasion when they were photographed.

For she says: "A Mrs Dugdale, who, I believe, was a governor of our school and had a house nearby, allowed us into the grounds one very hot summer's day."

They spent some time at Griffin Lodge the mansion in Cavendish Place belonging to former Blackburn mayoress and magistrate, Mrs Adam Dugdale.

The 16-bedroom house was built around 1856 by her father-in-law, cotton manufacturer Dr Thomas Dugdale, founder of Griffin Mill. He also built Griffin School in 1870 and the Dugdale family were principal subscribers to the £9,000 fund which paid for now-closed St Philip's Church to be built 10 years later.

Griffin Lodge was sold by the family in 1937 after the death of the octogenarian Mrs Dugdale who the year before had, amid fears of war, begun turning the mansion's basement billiard room into a gas-proof shelter -- to which she and her staff were to be summoned by a servant sounding a dinner gong when a gas attack took place.

Standing in nine acres, Griffin Lodge was also the home in out-buildings to cattle and pigs. Another facility in its grounds was a football pitch created by Mrs Dugdale's husband for their sons and friends -- and for friendly matches which often featured Blackburn Rovers' players and which raised hundreds of pounds for St Philip's Church and School.

The house was occupied by the Post Office Telephones engineering department for more than 30 years until 1965 and later temporarily housed the council's parks department before coming under the threat of demolition because of dry rot.

Though it became semi-derelict and vandalised, Griffin Lodge was rescued in 1974 when it became the base of its present-day occupants, the North West Museum and Art Gallery Service.