Work on Barrow’s new College of Further Education was under way in January 1989.

As guests invited to the sod-cutting ceremony tucked into their buffet lunch on January 10, excavators were busy outside the marquee getting ready for the excavations.

COUNCIL: Maggie Chadwick, pictured with county councillor Alan Nicholson

COUNCIL: Maggie Chadwick, pictured with county councillor Alan Nicholson

Work would include creating construction department workshops, including three double workshops devoted to brickwork, painting and decorating and timber trades.

Also in the pipeline were new classrooms, drawing offices, a high technology centre and catering and social areas.

Overall the new scheme would reduce the college’s seven sites to five, made up of the new block, the existing Howard Street complex, the John Whinnerah Institute, the St Mary’s block and the training workshops in Park Road.

College vice principal Bill Bishop-Miller said: “The Department of Education and Science is showing great interest in this project. It is an opportunity that has come about because of Project Furness.”

PAINT: Red Shively taking part in a specialist course in Victorian decorative paint techniques at Barrow College of Further Education in 1989

A brand new excavator ceremoniously scooped up half a shovelful of earth in Barrow to officially get the college project under way.

It was the first major development on nearly 250 acres of derelict industrial land at the former iron and steelworks site, which was slowly being transformed in a £10 million scheme which would change the westerly face of Barrow.

When completed, in several years' time, much of the visible evidence of the town's iron and steelmaking past, which formed the foundations of the prosperity enjoyed in 1989, would have been swept away.

Also in 1989 The Mail reported that internationally known interior decorators, designers and top craftsmen were going to Barrow College of Further Education's painting and decorating department, where senior lecturer Pete Sadler and lecturer Dave Offley were running their specialist course in Victorian decorative paint treatments.

PATTERN: Intricate work at a specialist course in Victorian decorative paint techniques at Barrow College of Further Education in 1989

PATTERN: Intricate work at a specialist course in Victorian decorative paint techniques at Barrow College of Further Education in 1989

The course taught the techniques used by Victorian interior designers to decorate their houses.

Sometimes the techniques were used to imitate the qualities of marble, tortoise-shell or rare and expensive woods.

They were becoming increasingly popular in the late 1980s as people sought to restore some contemporary character to their Victorian houses or to create an eye-catching effect in a new house.