It's Private

Almost no-one lived  in our East End before the age of publicly-provided schools of any kind.  Isolated hamlets and farm homesteads with children before 1870's beginning of compulsory education could look to the nearest village school at Sandridge, Colney Heath or London Colney, but the distance to be walked might have been considerable.  St Peter's Rural Board School, now known as Camp School, was the first to serve small populations nearer the city from the end of the century.

But there were several privately run schools. The term school was sometimes loosely used and may had registered fewer than ten or so  pupils – occasionally as few as three or four.  The children would have lived within the city or, if they boarded, perhaps brought from nearby towns.  So let's trawl through the 19th and early 20th centuries to discover how many private schools there were, from the advertisements the owners placed in the Herts Advertiser.  It is quite possible the same address was home to more than one establishment over a period of time, and the same establishment may have moved in response to expected growth. Nevertheless, it is a long list!

Oxford House began life in Alma Road under the tutorship of Mr G J Nettleton and was in existence before 1880.  It moved to larger premises in Bricket Road in 1883 before ownership transferred to Mr & Mrs J Thornhill by 1900.  From a mapping survey taken in 1877 Bricket Road had been laid out though no building had taken place; the first houses were on the east side.  It would have been one of these the school moved to.  Places were offered to both day pupils and boarders.  Below, in the paragraph about Claremont House, is a map showing that school.  Almost opposite Claremont is a pair of houses labelled Oxford Villas,  the starting location for Oxford House.

The pair of villas in Alma Road which were named Oxford Villas.  One or both of them had been
the first home of Oxford House School.
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An image of a room for younger children at Oxford House School.  It is more likely to have been
at Bricket Road than the earlier Alma Road premises.
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Rochester House: Miss Clara Bamforth opened this school in London Road, renaming it Rochester House High School once St Albans Girls' High School began advertising itself.  Miss Bamforth specialised in elocution training.  In 1901 the school moved to 101 St Peter's Street, next to the White House.  The Bamforth family are recorded in the 1901 census living here – the name may be familiar as one half of the partnership Gibbs & Bamforth, publishers of the Herts Advertiser.  Later numbered 68, it was next door to Mary Dear's Temperance Hotel, which was also home to a school for a short time.

Gentlemen's Preparatory School: In 1900 it was run from a villa called Verulam in Hatfield Road.  By 1919 it is thought to be the same establishment as "a school for young gentlemen from 5 to 13" known as Wellington House, Bricket Road, and headed by Mr W Millington.

Manor Lodge: for boarders and day girls in Upper Lattimore Road.  Miss Palmer was in charge in 1896, but she gave her address as Ramsgate; and a Miss Miskin offered a Paris address! The school, including a separate school room,  was offered for sale in 1909, marketed as a "high school for girls", although two years earlier the school also advertised having "classes for little boys".

The extant building which was formerly Manor Lodge in Lattimore Road.
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Merrilands was a rarely-found educational building on the Beaumonts estate, Elm Drive, opening in 1933 and closing on the retirement of its owner, Miss I M Kell, in the mid fifties.  There was a uniform with the base colour of orange.

The owner and head teacher of Merrilands School at the Oakwood Drive end of Elm Drive
lived in the house on the right.  The house on the left, part hidden by a street tree, was
occupied by a rather unflattering bungalow until the 1960s and so is a later build.  
This was the school.
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Birklands as a set of buildings had an interesting history, constructed  for Londoner Henry Jenkins Gotto in 1883 and called Newhouse Park.  He had acquired nearby Newhouse Farm in 1877.  Dating from the 16th century it had been a meeting place for nonconformist dissenters.  Miss Elizabeth Cox had a small girls' boarding school called Birklands in Highgate, London, but decided to move her school to Newhouse Park in 1905, renaming it New Birklands.  Although other schools moved to St Albans during World War Two, Miss Langridge, who had taken over ownership of the school, move her school from St Albans to Warwickshire, returning in 1945.  It continued at a smaller level until 1969 when the site was sold to the University of Hertfordshire.  It is now a range of apartments.

Originally named Newhouse Park, the school which later occupied these buildings was named
New Birklands, reverting to plain Birklands.  It was located at the London Colney end of London
Road, close to Newhouse Park Farm.

Clare House began from the address of the Misses Hare in Stanhope Road in the 1890s, although it had moved to Lemsford Road post WW1, under the tutelage of Miss Ingall, and later by the Misses Bryce.  It was another school specialising in education for girls, although there was a prep section for boys, according to an advertisement from 1907.

Clare House occupied a detached 1890s villa in the newly built Stanhope Road, then on the edge of
St Albans and before the district of Fleetville existed.

Claremont House.  This school may have been the forerunner of the above-named Clare House.  It appears to have begun life at a building known as College House in College Street, but by the 1880s moved to a villa of the same name in Alma Road.  Advertisements for this establishment appeared in the Herts Advertiser as early as 1872, under the rather long name of "Mr C Root's Middle Class Boarding and Day School for Young Gentlemen".  In 1872 a separate establishment was being advertised under the name Claremont House: the Classical Commercial and Scientific School, although by 1876 this had been modified to St Albans Commercial School for Boys, in which day boys and boarders continued to attend.  The latter named establishment was still advertising in 1898 and run by Mr Wroot – although this is the year in which he died.  The sale particulars stated the house possessed 13 bedrooms and that there were boarded buildings and a playground at the rear.  It was later in the charge of Mr Jackson Harrington.  Today, this property is partly on the footprint of Telford Court. Claremont House seems to have been unusual in being exclusively for boys.

Clearly shown on the town plan survey surveyed in 1877 Claremont House has a similarly long
rear garden space as other villas in Alma Road, but as a school much of this space has been
added to the domestic quarters specifically for school use; dormitory bedrooms and a 
school room.  There is also evidence of a playground and toilets at the far end.  This is a
sheet from the town plan surveyed in 1877.
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Russell House.  Opened in WW1 in premises formerly occupied by St Albans High School for Girls in the cottage hospital building in Holywell Hill.  The final advertisement appeared located in Kelly's Directory in 1932.  The site is now occupied by Abbey Court on the corner of Albert Street.  The school was run by sisters, the Misses Cloute.

On the site which is currently Abbey Court at the junction of Holywell Hill and Albert Street,
had previously been a small cottage hospital, but other occupiers of the site had been an inn and at least two schools, one of which was Russell House.

Aylesford House in London Road.  This boys' school was begun by Mr W Hanford Turner from a villa on the country side of the Midland Railway bridge.  The name came from the villa it occupied on start-up.  In 1907 the school was owned by Mr C Leighton. c1935 the school purchased the adjacent villa, Nunsmead, and thus became 246-8 London Road.  Mr and Mrs Bayley owned the school at this point.  It accepted boys from 7 to 14, preparing them for public schools and the Royal Navy.  The uniform colour was grey with pink edged blazers, later changed to pink stripes.  In 1939 the school announced there was a large concrete cellar, a facility which would have been uppermost the minds of potential parents in that year.  In 1947 the school moved to occupy part of Sandridgebury House, and was later merged with Hardenwick School, Harpenden.

The Hall. Around 1930 a small school "for young children" opened at 20 London Road, the site of the former Dear Hotel.  The owner was Miss Elsie Bodkin.

On this site in London Road – at an access driveway to a car park – was a Victorian temperance
hotel known as Dear's. When no longer required for this purpose a later occupier was Miss Bodkin
who ran a small school.  A renumbering of London Road is the reason for the replaced
building being numbered 64.

Verulam School. Not the current establishment in Brampton Road, but the advertisement indicated it was close to Clarence Park at 88 Hatfield Road, one of the villas near to Granville Road.  First advertised in 1903 it espoused "a modern and practical education" run by Mr J W Cassels.  By 1919 it had moved to Upper Lattimore Road. Here it was run by Miss Collier as a girls' school with a boys' prep class.  While at Hatfield Road it is assumed it catered for boys.

If you thought this was a fine list of private schools to have occupied St Albans, the above collection is yet less than half complete.  In almost all cases the establishments occupied buildings previously intended as residential dwellings for individuals, couples or families.  No-one spent money in engaging an architect to design a school for that purpose.  Especially given the poor investment rick.

The collection will continue.