It was a small academy with a specific discipline of study closer in spirit to a master and apprentice structure than an educational institution.
[1] It was directed by the British sculptor Rosemary Barnett; other artists involved in its educational role included Harry Everington, Alan Thornhill and Ken Ford.
Its prime aim and charitable purpose was to provide an education in the observational and technical disciplines of figurative sculpture and to support and encourage the creative potential revealed in the process.
The school covered every aspect of figurative sculpture, including welding, carving in wood and stone, letter cutting, mould-making and casting – in addition to modelling in clay.
For two years of their lives, the members of this community were expected to search with perception and imagination and find sculptural means to express that which they could discover.