Into the New World

 In addition to the schools which have their roots in St Albans, other schools had made plans to join them during the post-war period.  These were a number of charity grammar schools whose historic home was in inner London and which chose to develop in greener pastures beyond the capital.  St Clement Danes, formed in 1862 near Aldwych moved to Chorleywood in 1975; Parmiter's (1681 Bethnel Green, Garston 1977) and Dame Alice Owen (1613, Islington, Potters Bar from 1973) have all continued as successful co-educational comprehensive schools in Hertfordshire.

Central Foundation Boys' School frontage in Islington.  The trustees had considered moving
the school to St Albans after the Second World War.

A name less well known to us are the Central Foundation schools (CFS) in Islington and Tower Hamlets.  Their trustees had agreed expansion plans, which inevitably included the urgent need to provide improved facilities, and to replace bomb damaged buildings. They began negotiations with Hertfordshire County Council  promptly after the end of the Second World War.  

Land comprising Cunningham Farm and Little Cell Barnes Farm came into the hands of the St Albans and Hertfordshire authorities for housing as the London Road and Mile House estates. Naturally, the education authority was anxious to reserve land early for future schools.  A site on the corner of Drakes Drive and London Road had been reserved for a secondary school, and was pencilled in for the new Central Foundation.  Given the footprint of the Drakes Drive site CFS initially planned its girls' school here and the boys would move to a site at Hatfield.  However, by the mid-fifties the schools' trusts altered their own plans and, as a result, today remain at their inner London locations.  

Hertfordshire's solution was to provide much needed grammar school places and built a mixed
grammar school, completed over two years late.  The view in 1963 across Drakes Drive of the
still unfinished Francis Bacon School.
COURTESY CHRIS NEIGHBOUR

Becoming a comprehensive school in the 1970s and an all-through school in the new millennium, Francis Bacon is now re-badged Samuel Ryder Academy.
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The benefit for Hertfordshire of London schools transferring to the Home Counties is the development capital they bring with them.  Meanwhile, Hertfordshire's increasingly desperate need for additional grammar places in St Albans forced a rapid advancement of Francis Bacon mixed grammar school in the building programme,  which was to be at the Drakes Drive site – the third such school to put down roots in our East End (although one, St Albans Girls' Grammar (STAGGS), subsequently moved to new buildings in Sandridgebury Lane in 1953.  The new Francis Bacon School (now named Samuel Ryder Academy) was created and opened long before buildings were ready in 1963; the first tranche of pupils and staff took tenancy at the former Alma Road buildings, temporary home to many schools which suffered delayed building programmes.

The location of former St Julian's Farm, Boys', Girls' and then Mixed Secondary Modern and 
Comprehensive schools all sported the name St Julian's School, before being renamed 
Marlborough Academy.
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Back in the mid-thirties several sites, including distant St Julian's Wood, were considered for a future senior school, although few thought St Albans would expand quite that far. By 1938 a location at St Julian's Farm had been selected with architect Percival C Blow nominated.  Even before serving the up-coming estates at St Stephen's, St Julian's, Sopwell and Cottonmill, children at the old buildings at Priory Park and St Peter's required new accommodation. War cancelled that project, but St Julian's Boys' School was finished in 1953 on the same footprint, although it opened as a mixed secondary modern, accepting children from Priory Park and Hatfield Road.  A second school for the girls was later added on an adjacent site.  The school, renamed Marlborough, was formally mixed in 1981.

The Sandpit Lane land intended for a new senior/secondary school for future Marshalswick, was instead commandeered for a Boys' Grammar School games field.  After the War the education authority sought and found a new site at The Ridgeway West, although it came with the disadvantage of being close to the Green Belt boundary.  A further limitation was the funding which, instead of a mixed school the new Marshalswick premises would appear in 1959 as a boys-only establishment, with the girls element appearing in future years.  Effectively, the Council produced half a school.  

Marshalswick School shortly after its opening.  The fencing across the upper part of the photo
marks the green belt boundary.  The Ridgeway West (as it was then known) crosses the lower
part of the picture.

Sandringham School as viewed today.  The same boundary is now a path and row of mature trees,
with the residential estate encroaching from the east and south-east.
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The seed-corn came from approximately half of the pupils of Beaumont, then boys only and growing quickly.  From 1959 Beaumont became mixed, as Beaumont Girls' School in Hatfield Road was also reaching capacity.

The other half of Marshalswick School was ongoing in 1972 with a year-by-year amalgamation with the renamed Beaumont Girls' (Sandfield School), which gave Marshalswick its mixed formula for the first time.  Hertfordshire's trial with small village secondaries appeared not to be sustainable.  Redbourn and Wheathampstead both had short lives; only London Colney had an extended lifespan, and will be the subject of a later blog.  The remainder of a depleting Wheathampstead, whose buildings were at Hilltop, where a teachers' professional centre would later set up camp, marked with Marshalswick under the new badge of Sandringham School, in 1981.

Townsend, a mixed C of E Secondary School on its High Oaks site.
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Finally this week we refer to two sites which had been earmarked for local authority use long before the Second World War; the first of which was referred to in an earlier blog and had been reserved for a senior technical school on the north side of St Albans.  As we might now expect, having read this series of blog posts, no technical school materialised, but the 1930s Townsend Boys' and Girls' Schools in Townsend Drive required new premises in the post-war era, partly to extend the range of facilities, but also to alleviate overcrowding as the school age population expanded.  The girls' school move to the ex-tech High Oaks site in 1963, allowing the boys to occupy the whole of the Townsend premises.  Extra accommodation at High Oaks was possible within the funding limits after a decade had passed and a newly merged Townsend School opened at High Oaks in 1974.

Nicholas Breakspear Catholic School, Colney Heath Lane.

Ss Alban & Stephen School was able to change from its elementary to primary status when, in 1955 St Michael's Catholic Secondary School opened in Garston.  Inevitably the number of additional places which were supplied by that school soon dried up, and the authority launched its plan for a new Catholic secondary school in the East End of the city, which opened in 1963.  The land in Colney Heath Lane had been purchased in the early years of the twentieth century for the purpose of a wing of Hill End Hospital, but by the time the land was actually required the site was deemed too small and Cell Barnes Hospital was developed and opened in 1933 on a larger site on part of today's Highfield Park.  The Colney Heath Lane land remained vacant until 1961 and Nicholas Breakspear mixed Catholic Secondary School opened in 1963.

It is about time we focused on a number of Primary schools which have been added to the local scene to manage the post-war baby boom.  Look forward to next week.

All Change Again

 By 1931, the East phase, the first of the three educational re-organisation programmes, was more or less complete.  At least for the moment.  So, on to the Central phase.  As with the East phase, Central wasn't quite self-contained, but somehow the Education Committee needed to create Primary or Junior Mixed Infants (JMI) schools from the elementaries at Alma Road, Bernards Heath and Garden Fields.  To achieve this senior boys would attend Hatfield Road (how many more pupils could this set of buildings accommodate?) and senior girls would attend Priory Park.  If you have been following closely to this series of posts you will note two facts: that Alma Road was already full of senior girls and Priory Park was already full of senior boys.  But at least the girls would be given access to the new Central School and the junior age girls would remain where they were.  The girls now to attend Priory Park were given one benefit at an otherwise inadequate building: a hot water central heating system would replace the inefficient and time-consuming coal burning classroom stoves.  At the same time St Peter's Elementary next door would become a JMI with the older seniors transferring to the same two senior schools. 

Bernards Heath School frontage in Sandridge Road, built to serve the community of Sandridge
New Town.  It became infants only when Spencer Junior School (now renamed) opened.
COURTESY BERNARDS HEATH INFANT & NURSERY SCHOOL

Christ Church School, Verulam Road, in 1936.  The same building is now occupied by the
Royal British Legion.
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Out west St Michael's would become a JMI, Abbey would become Juniors only and Christ Church would limit itself to Infants only.  The first of two senior schools would be constructed on a new site in Townsend Drive.  Initially called the Church School(s) it was formally named  Townsend School(s) on opening.

Townsend CE Senior School buildings almost complete at the end of 1933.
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Back East the Education Committee had to manage three new issues in the form of expanding housing.  Beaumonts estate was already emerging from the ground in the early 1930s; just in time the Committee promptly snapped up three future streets east of Oakwood Drive for a pair of senior schools.  Plans were being laid for a significant new residential estate between Camp Road and London Road, although it was still too early to identify potential land purchases. Finally, more new housing was imminently expected at Marshalswick, the land for its future school being acquired in Sandpit Lane – an extension of the site for a future primary school and the new Beaumonts site, eventually extending in a continuous band from Hatfield Road to Sandpit Lane, extending Oakwood Drive through to Sandpit Lane – although that never happened.  

Plan drawn up in 1936 for land acquired east of Beaumont Avenue.
The pink area is the school's original footprint and the three access
points from Oakwood Drive (left). In the future the boundary would
be extended to Hatfield Road (bottom).  Further land towards Sandpit Lane 
(top) just purchased for playing field for Beaumont Schools girls, a future primary
 school and for a future senior school to serve Marshalswick; the latter proposal,
however, faltered.
COURTESY HALS

In each case both JMIs and senior schools would be required, but the most immediate requirement would be for the Beaumonts site.  Plans were ready for building to begin in 1936.  The girls' school would be on the first floor while the boys would occupy the ground floor level.  There were, inevitably, very limited shared facilities, mainly the gymnasium, and even that was not part of the initial proposals. Before c1937 the schools design template required school halls to double up as gymnasia.  As with other similar schools it remained a pair of senior schools until 1947, the singular alteration being the removal of the final s, becoming Beaumont Schools rather than Beaumonts Schools shortly after opening.

Beaumont Schools opened in 1938, with girls occupying the upper floor and boys on the ground.

Opening in 1938 the first tranche of pupils transferred from Hatfield Road and Priory Park, and a school not yet featured in these posts, Colney Heath Elementary, allowing that school to transform into JMI status.

From the mid-twenties Parliament paid much attention to the question of secondary schools.  The term senior was traditionally the older department of elementary schools, and simply hiving off those pupils into separate buildings while still calling them senior schools, did nothing positive for their educational aspirations unless closer  attention was given to the curriculum.  The much acclaimed Hadow Report highlighted the right of every pupil to take advantage of a secondary school, irrespective of ability to pay the fees, if they could legitimately take advantage of its curriculum.  Spoiler alert for the eleven plus coming up!

So it was that still more schools of a new type would be required during the 1930s; they would be known as Modern schools – confusingly the first of two styles using this designation.  We will follow up the Modern schools next time and discover what happened to them.

So, we are on the cusp of the Second World War and the East End still has Fleetville and Camp school buildings, plus recently added new Central (1931) and Ss Alban & Stephen (1934).