to house refugee Czech academics and intellectuals. Ironically, in the German Invasion Handbook for Operation Sea Lion (Unternehmen Seelöwe) it was named as one of several large properties in the area suitable for use by the occupation authorities. It closed as a Congregational College in the late 20th century and has since been reused by the General, Municipal and Boilermakers' Union (GMB) as a training centre for their trade union members. At the beginning of this century the union tried to sell it to developers. A successful protest movement was convened by Jeremi Palka-Zawadzki, a long-term resident, and others. It now operates as the British Muslim Heritage Centre (BMHC) and has undergone a multimillion-pound repair and renovation. The centre held its first public outdoor event – BMHC Family Day – on Sunday 1 May 2011. Schools Secondary schools St Bede's College (on Alexandra Road South), a Roman Catholic independent school founded in 1876, was originally built as an aquarium but this was not a commercial success. The college acquired it after having been established in Manchester City Centre. It is built of red brick and terracotta and the frontage is very ornate. If the building appears asymmetrical, that is because the money ran out for a wing on the north side of the main entrance, built in the 1870s. It was only in the 1930s that the College gave up the land at the end of Mayfield Road, preferring to expand eclectically westwards toward Alness Road, then known as Albert Road. At the same time it sold its playing fields which had been between College Road and Burford Road, originally the site of Whalley Range Cricket Club, and where St Margaret's C.E. Primary now has its playing fields, acquiring the freehold of Whalley Farm. The area west of Withington Road became playing fields, the rest continued as a farm until the late 1960s, when it became the site of St George's RC High School. In the 1980s the Cenacle Convent's large red brick building on Wellington Road became part of the College's campus, along with the area freed by the demolition of several houses on that road. William Hulme's Grammar School (in Springbridge Road) was established as an independent school in 1887, became a direct grant grammar school in 1946, and returned to full independence in 1976. In 2007, the school rejoined the state education sector, scrapping its annual tuition