This article presents a critical case study of an inner city state school that for a decade (1940s-1950s) attracted the interest of a wide contingency of educationalists, policy makers, researchers, artists and various press and film media. It has been argued that if we are to progress "social alternatives" in education, researchers need to construct "critical case studies of possibilities" drawing inspiration from traces of experimental and utopian practice in schools from the past as well as the present. The article demonstrates how this might be achieved through research that questions dominant narratives, goes beyond the public accounts of particular sites of experimentation and explores multiple-narratives embedded in the records of past practice. The authors argue that such situated counter-currents in the history of education are necessary both to inform our collective notions of past experience and enrich our regard for future possibilities.(Contains 2 figures,11 notes, and 5 primary sources.)