The morning had started with a series of failures. I was starting to question if UK urbex was worth giving up a Saturday night, to drive hundreds of miles at 5am in sub zero temperatures…So we reverted to our default setting of finding a KFC and discussing where to go next. With light fading this was our only option that was close enough to realistically do. Thanks to Priority 7 who had been before, so could offered a whistle-stop tour.
History:
Just over 200 years ago in 1798 several charities were set up for clothing and educating sons of needy Freemasons. They originally provided education by sending them to schools near to their homes. A specific masonic boys' school was set up at Wood Green in North London in 1857 following amalgamation of all of the charities in 1852.
This would have been getting ‘dated’ after 50 years, so A new school was built in 1903 and this is where we’ll be looking at today.
Cadets parading on the lawn (c.1950
One of the lawns today (note the chapel on the right)
I’m aware that a lot of the school has been reported on before. But to date, not many people have managed to document the chapel, so this is where I’ll focus the report.Original External photo of the Chapel:
c.1950
December 2012:
Ceiling above the alter at the front:
Font at the back:
I’ve managed to find a lot of interviews and anecdotes as told by former pupils, which I have included some excerpts of below. They paint a picture of a pretty strict regime, but I imagine these anecdotes are common among any grammar school of that era.
“I was driven with my mother to the school. I was terrified.
The last thing that should happen to any young child is to be sent to a boarding school so soon after the loss of a parent. I cannot blame my mother for allowing me to go there - she thought she was doing the best thing for me. Never-the-less, the fact that my mother refused to remove me from that evil place for four years soured my relationship with her for the next two decades.”
“Impoverished Irish girls were employed as serving staff and they were teased horribly by the older boys who were beginning to exhibit a gift for crude sexual innuendo that seems to afflict some boys when hovering at the start of puberty.”
“The letters that went out, these were censored by the teachers. I was once taken ill and spent time in the school ‘Infirmary’. To cause some disruption to the nursing staff I used to put the clinical thermometer on the radiator to get it up a couple of degrees to make it look as though I was feverish. Foolishly, I wrote to my mother about this. Although the letter had been sealed down by me I got a walloping for what I had done because all letters were opened and re-sealed.”
“I had very good eyesight as a child. I used to sit at the back of the class (because I was better behaved than those who had to sit at the front) and could easily read the blackboard. Then I had an eye test for no good reason - many pupils were exposed to this test. Drops were put into my eyes and my vision went extremely blurred.
They never recovered.
I was sat in the front row of classes but I still couldn’t read the board. A desk was put right under the blackboard but I still had trouble reading the blackboard. No teacher wondered why this was happening to me. I had a tiny telescope which was a present from my mother. I smuggled this into classes and used it discreetly to read from the front row. I never told any teachers about this little visual aid because I feared I might get beaten for using it!”
“Another teacher was the most vindictive ******* I have ever come across. He used to rule with a rod of iron. If we did not understand a maths problem or fall behind, he would have any of us behind after lesson and pull our trousers down and get whacked with his bare hands.”
…His [the teachers] response to that was to produce two pairs of boxing gloves and arranging the desks into a makeshift boxing ring and have it out with me. The result was my nose being plastered all over my face.”
‘C’ House – 1952.
“At the age of 48 I am still scarred by my time there, I can relate to so many of your memories and I remain to this day bitter and twisted by my experience.*One master in particular deserves a special mention and if I ever see him again I will beat him to within an inch of his life - that, believe me, is no idle threat.”
Sobering stuff. By 1939 the school was at it’s height, with 800 boys attending. There was 830 at the secondary school I went to, and that was half the size of this! Following a decline in pupil numbers the junior school closed in 1970, when it was turned into an ‘academy’, but numbers still fell until it was closed in 1977. So began it’s only-occasional use. Used to house international students, and to film Monty Pytons ‘Meaning of life’. Let’s move onto to the modernised, more practical bits of the building.
Main Hall:
One of the quadrangles c.1950:
Another quadrangle, December 2012:
Corridor (Currently under refurbishment):
The site is currently being converted into luxury housing, very nice it looks too. I’ve managed to acquire the full set of architectural drawings for the scheme - The clock tower is being converted into an apartment!:
Unfortunately the chapel is being converted into office, which is a shame. I’ve converted chapels to houses before, and the people that take them on have an affinity with the building, and generally take on a responsibility for the building. Whereas no one ever really feels ownership of an office. On a more practical level, all of it’s character will be destroyed when the route out the walls to allow CAT5 cabling throughout. There will no doubt be access floors laid over the beautiful tiles, and I don’t even want to think what is going to happen to the pews, font, or that organ.
Thanks for looking, video to follow.
History:
Just over 200 years ago in 1798 several charities were set up for clothing and educating sons of needy Freemasons. They originally provided education by sending them to schools near to their homes. A specific masonic boys' school was set up at Wood Green in North London in 1857 following amalgamation of all of the charities in 1852.
This would have been getting ‘dated’ after 50 years, so A new school was built in 1903 and this is where we’ll be looking at today.
Cadets parading on the lawn (c.1950
One of the lawns today (note the chapel on the right)
I’m aware that a lot of the school has been reported on before. But to date, not many people have managed to document the chapel, so this is where I’ll focus the report.Original External photo of the Chapel:
c.1950
December 2012:
Ceiling above the alter at the front:
Font at the back:
I’ve managed to find a lot of interviews and anecdotes as told by former pupils, which I have included some excerpts of below. They paint a picture of a pretty strict regime, but I imagine these anecdotes are common among any grammar school of that era.
“I was driven with my mother to the school. I was terrified.
The last thing that should happen to any young child is to be sent to a boarding school so soon after the loss of a parent. I cannot blame my mother for allowing me to go there - she thought she was doing the best thing for me. Never-the-less, the fact that my mother refused to remove me from that evil place for four years soured my relationship with her for the next two decades.”
“Impoverished Irish girls were employed as serving staff and they were teased horribly by the older boys who were beginning to exhibit a gift for crude sexual innuendo that seems to afflict some boys when hovering at the start of puberty.”
“The letters that went out, these were censored by the teachers. I was once taken ill and spent time in the school ‘Infirmary’. To cause some disruption to the nursing staff I used to put the clinical thermometer on the radiator to get it up a couple of degrees to make it look as though I was feverish. Foolishly, I wrote to my mother about this. Although the letter had been sealed down by me I got a walloping for what I had done because all letters were opened and re-sealed.”
“I had very good eyesight as a child. I used to sit at the back of the class (because I was better behaved than those who had to sit at the front) and could easily read the blackboard. Then I had an eye test for no good reason - many pupils were exposed to this test. Drops were put into my eyes and my vision went extremely blurred.
They never recovered.
I was sat in the front row of classes but I still couldn’t read the board. A desk was put right under the blackboard but I still had trouble reading the blackboard. No teacher wondered why this was happening to me. I had a tiny telescope which was a present from my mother. I smuggled this into classes and used it discreetly to read from the front row. I never told any teachers about this little visual aid because I feared I might get beaten for using it!”
“Another teacher was the most vindictive ******* I have ever come across. He used to rule with a rod of iron. If we did not understand a maths problem or fall behind, he would have any of us behind after lesson and pull our trousers down and get whacked with his bare hands.”
…His [the teachers] response to that was to produce two pairs of boxing gloves and arranging the desks into a makeshift boxing ring and have it out with me. The result was my nose being plastered all over my face.”
‘C’ House – 1952.
“At the age of 48 I am still scarred by my time there, I can relate to so many of your memories and I remain to this day bitter and twisted by my experience.*One master in particular deserves a special mention and if I ever see him again I will beat him to within an inch of his life - that, believe me, is no idle threat.”
Sobering stuff. By 1939 the school was at it’s height, with 800 boys attending. There was 830 at the secondary school I went to, and that was half the size of this! Following a decline in pupil numbers the junior school closed in 1970, when it was turned into an ‘academy’, but numbers still fell until it was closed in 1977. So began it’s only-occasional use. Used to house international students, and to film Monty Pytons ‘Meaning of life’. Let’s move onto to the modernised, more practical bits of the building.
Main Hall:
One of the quadrangles c.1950:
Another quadrangle, December 2012:
Corridor (Currently under refurbishment):
The site is currently being converted into luxury housing, very nice it looks too. I’ve managed to acquire the full set of architectural drawings for the scheme - The clock tower is being converted into an apartment!:
Unfortunately the chapel is being converted into office, which is a shame. I’ve converted chapels to houses before, and the people that take them on have an affinity with the building, and generally take on a responsibility for the building. Whereas no one ever really feels ownership of an office. On a more practical level, all of it’s character will be destroyed when the route out the walls to allow CAT5 cabling throughout. There will no doubt be access floors laid over the beautiful tiles, and I don’t even want to think what is going to happen to the pews, font, or that organ.
Thanks for looking, video to follow.
