Our History

Notes and Sources

The largest part of the information in the Our History : Schools pages was researched and written by Lesley Davies in September 2001. It has been updated by Museum volunteers to December 2023.

Here are Lesley's Notes and Sources :

The details given here are those that are available through directories, books, log books, managers minutes and primary sources that are shown in the bibliography.  During the course of my research I have found mentions of other individual, privately run schools and academies.  It is not unlikely that they were a room in a private house and therefore would not be recorded as educational establishments.  As there are no clear indications to their whereabouts or who ran them and no follow up, I have not included them in this survey.

The first societies promoting education were : the British and Foreign School Society, 1808 and The National Society for the Promotion of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church, 1811. (Hutchinson’s CDROM & OED p.1311).  ‘The National and the British and Foreign set up schools for working class boys and girls nationwide.’ * (Forster, 134).

Several other schools serviced the children from Elstree and Boreham Wood that were not in the district.  Two of these were High Canons, Ridge and Foulds, Byng Road, Barnet.  High Canons was a house that was used as monastery by a religious order of monks named the Augustine Canons whose practice led them to travel the country in order to preach their beliefs.  Medburn was also used by the boys of Elstree and Boreham Wood in the 19th and 20th century and was situated in Watling Street at the end of Butterfly Lane. 

After WW2 there was a rapid building programme by the London County Council to accommodate people who had lost their homes in the war and to re-house those in a programme of slum clearance.  Land was cheap and plentiful in Boreham Wood and thousands of homes were built between 1950 and 1955.  At one time there were 90 children arriving every month and there were only 3 county run schools in operation because Furzehill County School had been destroyed by fire in February 1949.  So there was one in Shenley, one in Elstree and one in Boreham Wood to accommodate them.  The first post war school to be completed was Cowley Hill Junior Mixed Infants in 1949 and the last was Holmshill Secondary School in September 1958.  Altogether 15 new schools had been built in those years : 4 infant, 7 primary schools, 3 secondary schools and a Grammar school.

The design of post-war schools in Hertfordshire was, in part, created by architect Stirrat Johnson-Marshall who had served in the war and came out with the optimistic desire to modernise Britain.  His ideas were based on Swedish designs which called for clean simple lines that were practical and accessible to people of all ages.  It was his designs, together with other like-minded young architects, which led to glass window walling and exposed steel girders in the classrooms that are in almost all schools in the county, and certainly in Boreham Wood.  The systems were made up by a firm named Hill’s & Co of West Bromwich and the Herts 8 foot by 3 inch system was planned by its director and founder, Ernest Hinchcliffe.  He had been making buildings from concrete and cladding since the scarcity of natural materials brought about by the war and Herts CC left the design of the structure to him.  Through research which included discussions with teachers, reviews of old school classrooms which relied on clerestory windows for light, the layout of classrooms in which all pupils faced the front, corridors and toilets the team created a new concept in school design.  The toilets and hand basins were specially designed by Adamsez of Newcastle for children of primary age.  They were simple and plain with no dirt traps which allowed for easy cleaning and good hygiene.  The rimless basins were called ‘Bean’ basins, named after a small river that runs through Hertford. 

David Medd and friend of Gropius, Jack Pritchard, developed the designs for school furniture and it was through them that Dick Russell of Lebus designed and produced the trapezoidal table, thus changing the whole position of pupil seating in the classroom.  The warm-air heating system was designed by ‘Weatherfoil’ and was advanced for its time.  It saved fuel in a time of shortages because it was sensitive to the intermittent demands that schools required.  It was originally designed to heat classrooms to 60F and corridors to 45F as this was thought sufficient because people wore warmer clothing and were not used to central heating at this time.  For more information on Herts schools design please refer to the book ‘Towards a Social Architecture’ cited in the bibliography.

The national raising of the school leaving age to 16 came into effect in 1972.

The 3 tier system in Elstree and Boreham Wood began in 1971 but was not fully in place until 1974.  Herts. Education Sub-Committee reported that schools were re-organised in 1971 in a 3 tier system of upper schools providing for the age range 13 to 18, middle schools 9 to 13 and primary 5 to 9, except Roman Catholic 5 to 11 which was retained so that children were able to transfer to St Albans for secondary education.  (There was no other Roman Catholic school in Elstree or Boreham Wood).

Schools had always had a half term in February in which Friday and the following Monday were taken as holiday.  In modern times, (post WW2) Easter breaks had been 3 weeks.  In 1980 this changed and a whole week was awarded every February and the Easter holiday was shortened to 2 weeks. 

The first purpose built school in Elstree and Boreham Wood was erected near the Artichoke Public House on Elstree Hill North, around 1814.  The first known school in Boreham Wood was a mission hall that was used as a school, No. 35 Theobald Street, c. 1872.  The last pre-war school to be built was Hillside County Senior in Hillside Avenue Boreham Wood, due to open the day after WW2 broke out, 4th September 1939.  The first of the post-war schools was Cowley Hill Junior Mixed Infants in 1949 and the last school was Holmshill Secondary Modern in Thrift Farm Lane in 1958.  In Elstree the last school was the Haberdashers’ Aske’s School for Girls in 1974.

Bibliography
Castle, Stephen & Brooks, William, The Book of Elstree & Boreham Wood, (Barracuda Books Ltd., Buckingham,1988).
Castle, S., Elstree & Boreham Wood In Camera, (Quotes Ltd., Buckingham, 1990).
Castle, S., Elstree & Boreham Wood in Camera A Nostalgic Record, (St. Michael’s Abbey Press, Farnborough, 1983).
Dulley, H.R., The Haberdashers’ Aske’s School For Girls The First 125 Years, (Gresham Books Ltd., Oxford, 2000).
Sanderson, ICM., A History of Elstree School and Three Generations of the Sanderson Family, (Elstree School Association, Reading, 1979).
Edwin, J., History of Hertfordshire Cussans Vol. 111, (EP Publishers, Wakefield, 1972).
Forster, M. Significant Sisters, (Penguin Books, London, 1984).
Reverend Edward C Brooks, Sir Samuel Morton Peto Bt. 1809-1889 Victorian Entrenpeneur of East Anglia, (Bury clerical Society, 1996).
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, (Oxford University Press, London, 1972).
Saint, Andrew, Towards a Social Architecture, (Yale University Press, 1987).
Welsh, Paul, Boreham Wood in Old Picture Postcards, (European Press, Zaltbommel, 1999).
Wigley, J., A Short History of the Haberdashers’ Aske’s School Elstree, (Haberdashers’ Aske’s School Library, Elstree,1984).
Wratten, Donald, The Book of Radlett & Aldenham, (Barracuda Books Ltd., Buckingham, 1990).
Compilation, Elstree & Boreham Wood History, ref. only at Borehamwood Library, brown hardback cover.

Directories
Cassey Directory, Herts & Cambs, 1863, p275.  Rev. R. Bryant resident Boreham Wood.  I thought he may have been connected with the Mission Hall in Theobald St. but he was C of E and the hall was run by the RC church (I think).
Craven & Co Commercial Directory of Beds & Herts., 1854, pp 299,305.  Unreliable source. Says 2 private establishments not named.  Records show only Hill House (Elstree School) at this time but he could have included Aldenham School.  Also quotes just one National School as a Girls School and as this does not equate with other sources it can be assumed that this was the original Day and Sunday School for both boys and girls.
Essex Directory, (Guildhall Library), 1845, pp161-2.
Herts Directory, Pigot & Co. Herts. (County Archives & Guildhall Library), 1832, p735.  Mentions schoolmistress Sarah Wroot only, no school.  There is an 1838 edition at County Archives, p20.  The first Pigots was published in 1823 but this edition does not include Elstree and Boreham Wood.
Herts. Directory, Pigot & Co. (Guildhall Library), editions, 1826-7 p428, (this is the first reference to Elstree and Boreham Wood that I have found.  The entry is in the county of Middlesex).  1832/3/4 p735, (in this edition Elstree and Boreham Wood are entered under Hertfordshire). 1839 p185.
Kelly’s Directory (Herts. County Archives), 1898 pp82-3, 1908 p97, 1912 p97, 1918 pp92-2, 1937 pp100-101.
Kelly’s Directory (Guildhall Library) 1878 p484, 1882 p569, 1886 p645. 1890 p745, 1894 p25, 1895 p75, 1898 p82-3, 1902 p83, 1906p91, 1908p93, 1910 p94 1912 p97, 1914, 1917 p92, 1922 p94, 1926 p96, 1933 p98,
Post Office Directories (Guildhall Library) 1850, 1862, 1866, 1870, 1874, 1878.

Magazines and Papers
Abstract of Minutes, Herts. CC Education Committee, 17 January 1972 submitted to CC 7 March 1972, 27 March 1972. submitted 16 May 1972, 18 June 1973 submitted 31 July 1973, 21 January 1974, submitted 27 March 1974,
Generation : The Magazine of Hillside School Boreham Wood, Spring 1971.
Herts Advertiser, June 4 1976. (County Archives).
Herts Countryside Magazine, October 1972 vol. 27 No 162.
Herts. Education Sub-Committee Report, 31 January 1983. (County Archives).
The Hertfordshire Illustrated Review, Volume the first, pp290-295, 1893. (County Archives).
Hillsider, July 2000.
Willis, Alan, Theses, Education in Borehamwood Hertfordshire since 1912, 1974

School Log Books
Restricted access on records of 60 years and under, county archives.  Others on site.

OS Maps
It should be noted that the dates of the maps are not the dates the areas were surveyed, eg. the map dated 1873 was in fact surveyed in 1866.  As I intend to be as accurate as possible both dates are shown, the actual survey date is in brackets.
1873 Combined Elstree & Boreham Wood : (1866)
1872 Boreham Wood : (1870)
1898 Elstree
1898 Boreham Wood : (1896)
1914 Elstree
1914 Boreham Wood : (1913)
1935 Elstree
1935 Boreham Wood : (1934)

CDROM : Hutchinson Multimedia Encyclopedia (Helicon publishing Ltd., 1996).

Primary Sources
Reg. Beer, 36, Robert Ave., St. Albans.
John Cooper, Monksmead School, Boreham Wood.
Elaine Haggerty, Cowley Hill School, Boreham Wood.
Mary Hanson, Shenley Rd., Boreham Wood.
Bob Payne, 125, Hartforde Rd., Boreham Wood.
William Rowson, 67 Hartforde Rd., Boreham Wood.