More of the Same

 The previous post described how, in able to find space for a new school in 1938, proposed homes were scrubbed from the developer plans.  It seems this was not unique hereabouts.  Roll the calendar back thirty years along Tess Road (now Woodstock Road South) and Royal Road, and the house building scheme for the space between those two roads had just begun, when a lethargic education authority jumped to life and responded to residents' complains that there was no school in Fleetville for their children. A public meeting was held in a room at the Fleetville Institute on the corner of Arthur Road and the parents pressed their case successfully. The St Peter's Rural School (Camp) coped inadequately for the new Fleetville district as well as serving Camp and Tyttenhanger et al.  Stung by the pressure, the education body ensured no more houses were added to Tess Road and work began on building a new school – well, part of one.

Fleetville Elementary Schools – which for four years 1908 to 1912 accommodated children from
5 to 13 years old.  The view is from Royal Road.

A revision of the 1897 OS map and published in 1912.  The intended division of the building into
separate girls & infants, and boys sections.  The empty block to the south is reserved for an
infants only building, opened in 1912 but after the survey preparation for this map.
Incidentally, ignore the Benskins reference; that links to the green site just visible on the left.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

On a new estate with young families you would usually begin with an infants wing, or today, a nursery with infants wing.  But families in Fleetville had been waiting for so long the need was evident in all age groups.  Work began in 1907 on the Juniors and Seniors building.  You will notice a line delineates the playground, and therefore the classroom accommodation, for boys separately from girls.  South of this the map identifies an empty plot, which four years later would include an infants building.  The map is unusual in being a re-survey required because of the pace of new building in the district.  Published in 1912 it was not, however, late enough for the new infants building, opened in the same year.  Until then infant children were crammed into the existing building with two classes using the hall.  Fleetville was therefore over-full at birth!

The three houses at the south end of Tess Road just about pre-dated the schools, and were immediately transformed into the district's police station, and would much, much later offer essential school space in a further burgeoning accommodation crisis.  Keep an eye, too, on the outside toilets next to Tess Road. They began as equal spaces for boys and girls, although later extended to match increased numbers, especially for infants.  

The school's north end in the 1930s.  The "boys'" playground was used for major demonstration
events.  Today, a 1960s extension has been added to the original building.
COURTESY FLEETVILLE INFANTS & NURSERY SCHOOL

The 1937 map finally shows the infants building (below the word Schools), although today
the space between has been closed in with a 1960s link building.  The houses on the west
side of Tess Road are in use as a police station and staff accommodation.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

The next available map was published in 1937.  So this is the first opportunity for proving the existence of the smaller infant building – it had only been there for 25 years!  1937 was also the year when work began to expand the infants accommodation: a wooden hutted building raised off the playground and with steps to each of the two classrooms. To view this building we need to fast-forward to the next available map in 1963.  I have not been able to find a single photograph of "The Huts", and by the time it appeared on the 1963 map plans were afoot to construct a permanent hall building in its place.

Look across Royal Road to the recreation field, much used by the older children.  This map was published too early to show the temporary nursery building which arrived in 1942, but we do find proof that the field was then surrounded by metal railings with recognised gates.  Generations of children had worn a path from Hatfield Road towards the school entrance, officially Royal Road, via recognised gates.

One other restrained feature on the 1937 map is a short double line on the top left of the main building; our only clue to the basement boiler heating room at the foot of a flight of stairs.  It also performed a role as store room.

By the 1960s extensions have created a rather different outline shape to
the building.  The smaller building just to the left of the word "South" 
is the timber building known as "The Huts" which arrived in 1937 and
would soon be replaced by a permanent hall structure.  The 1942 wartime
day nursery appears on a map for the first time.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

The start of greening the playground spaces. The wall to the right is what remains of the former
outside toilets which were in use for all children for sixty years.

1963 reveals that the space between the main building and infants building has been filled in, providing important additional accommodation, including toilets and offices.  The outline shape at the north end was also different, providing toilets and an additional classroom.  The work removed evidence of wartime blast walls at the main entrances of both buildings, and therefore not shown on any map.  Also appearing for the first time – although probably present for nearly fifty years – is a small wooden structure used as a cycle shed.

The 1963 map is also the first to show the 1942 nursery building, although does not include evidence of the ramps leading down to the wartime tunnels under the nursery and beyond into the field.  Maps are sometimes poor recorders of  landscape changes!

The eighties see the infants section take over the entire building; the juniors moving across Hatfield Road to a nearby empty school building.  But that hasn't been the only move; the seniors from elementary school days finally left just in time to become part of the new Beaumont Schools in 1938.  Just as well, for in 1940 evacuee children from Princess Road School, Camden (now Primrose Hill Primary) arrived to share the buildings, thus creating one of Fleetville's periodic bulges, the next one lasting through the 1950s until 1980 even though a whole new school (Oakwood JMI) had opened from 1959 specifically to counter overcrowding at Fleetville.

The former day nursery has been a community centre since the 1980s; the nursery
then moved to the garden plot of the former police houses, and its car park was
created where the police houses themselves once stood.
COURTESY OPEN STREET MAP CONTRIBUTORS

Google's flyover photo today reveals both a familiar layout and a fuller
one, especially in the use of the outdoor spaces.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

To bring us up to date in the absence of intermediate maps, Open Street Map informs us that the former day nursery moved from its temporary location on the recreation field to where the garden for the former police houses had existed, and an expanded hall building dominates the Woodstock Road South side of the site.  If you were to walk along this road you will discover the former wall of the outside lavatories still in place!  And what of the former police houses?  They are now razed in favour of a car park for the Nursery building.  The modern map gives no clue to the busy-ness of the playground spaces, which encourages creative play instead of simply running around; and is a combination of grassed and shaded zones.

COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

Much change has been packed into the past 116 years at the busy school in the busiest of districts in the city.