Peter's Schools - 3

Norfolk House Downham Market Norfolk United Kingdom

I am indebted to Brian Thomas for allowing me to use his photographs of the Royal Masonic Schools.

Postscript - The Site of the Royal Masonic Senior School for Boys today

The Royal Masonic Senior School for Boys was in The Avenue, in Bushey, near Watford in the county of Hertfordshire, in the United Kingdom. It was always an impressive place to see: the architecture is interesting and the grounds always looked clean and tidy. The buildings were designed by the Victorian architects Gordon, Lowther and Gunton and the foundation stone was laid by Queen Victoria's son, the Duke of Connaught. in 1900, prior to the School opening in 1903.

  Brian Thomas's photographs taken in 2000 show the deterioration to both the fabric of the buildings and its surroundings that has occurred since the School closed in 1977 - a sad sight indeed.

In fact, I was very nervous about going to the Senior School: the place looked so imposing - to the point of being overbearing to a fourteen year old. I joined Burwood ("H") House, which maintained the traditional system of "fagging" (under which the junior boys carried out tasks for the more senior ones).

These tasks included cleaning Corps equipment, boots and shoes; carrying books; pressing and sewing Corps uniforms; making tea, coffee and toast; tidying up a study, and doing anything else that the senior boys did not fancy doing themselves! On every occasion we juniors used to minimise the work we did by ensuring that our routines for these tasks were as smooth and as slick as possible - I could clean three pairs of black shoes perfectly in under two minutes!

I did my part to support this way of life in Burwood House, as I made my way through the School. In my final year I became a House Prefect, enjoying the privileges and the extra work that that status bestowed. My study was on the first floor, the windows of which can be seen on the extreme left in the right-hand photograph below.

In some ways, life was made more difficult in my first year at the Senior School because Burwood House was accommodated on the Junior School site while refurbishment work was being carried out on the buildings that it and Warwick House occupied at the Senior School. You had to remember to take with you in the morning everything you were going to need for the rest of the day. Warwick House was temporarily accommodated in the former Sanatorium building on the Senior School site.

As part of this refurbishment, a Housemaster's residence was added to each House (out of sight to both left and right in the left-hand photograph above), and improved washing and bathing facilities for the boys were added (the new bathrooms are visible in the right-hand photograph above to the extreme right).

Other work that was carried out on the buildings while I was at the Senior School included the construction of a new Science Block. This had lovely facilities, but it was a modern pre-fabricated glass and plastic building which looked quite awful next to the traditional brick and stone. How was that allowed to happen?

New craft workshops were built, with excellent woodworking and metalworking facilities, again a building of modern construction, but tucked out of the way next to the swimming pool building. One year, all the stonework in the School was cleaned by contractors. They fastened hoses onto scaffolding and directed jets of water onto each piece of stonework, which must have used millions of gallons of water!

As far as I can remember, the daily routine ran roughly as follows:

I am not sure that all these details are right, so if you can correct them, please let me know.

We received a very good standard of teaching to "O" Level in all subjects although, by modern standards, most were rather unimaginatively taught. The most interesting day I can remember was a trip to Fishbourne to see the remains of the Roman Villa there.

Personally, I found the teaching at "A" Level was not always good enough in all subjects for me to reach my full potential, although I did manage to achieve two "A" Levels.

Friday was "Corps Day". When I first went to the Senior School, the Corps activities took place after the morning break and finished before lunch. This meant that those who had a uniform (IVth Form and above) had to put it on when they got up and needed to wear it at breakfast and until lunch time - most uncomfortable! Later, the Corps activities were moved to the afternoon, which meant that the uniform could be put on after lunch.

The Corps activities included drill (lots of it), weapon theory and practical training (.303" Martini rifles and Bren guns, amongst others - probably all from the First World War) and assault course training. It was difficult for me to see how these activities could relate to anything in my life - only once was I ever issued with blank ammunition for my rifle. Nevertheless, several of my friends were inspired to join the Armed Forces.

Later, I became a member of the School Band. I did not play an instrument, but I looked after the uniforms and helped with preparations for displays and ceremonies. This was a good deal for me - I did not have to attend any band practice sessions, and I was involved in all the rather more interesting things that the Band did!

Once a week there was a session of extra-curricular activities (called "Special Classes"). Available activities included woodworking, metalworking, printing and sports. In these classes, I learnt some of the basic skills then used in the printing trade, using the traditional methods of setting type by hand. I was taught by Mr Cornelius, who must have been the most patient man ever. Very rarely did he ever get ruffled at our stupid antics, and he taught us with great pride, care and affection.

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At present, this is just a start, an overview of some of the aspects of life at the Royal Masonic Senior School: I will add more from time to time. If you would like to comment on what I have written so far, or add anything to it, please contact me.

Postscript - The Site of the Royal Masonic Senior School Today

The Senior School property was sold a little while after the School closed in 1977. For a time, the property was the "University of America (Europe) Limited" and was an academic institution again. Presumably, this venture did not meet its expected success and after a few years, the property was sold again. An attempt was then made to use the School as a conference centre and a country hotel complex. This does not seem to have met with much success either because, for many years, no apparently positive use was being made of the facilities - except by the film and television industry!

Sadly, all the time since the School had closed, the fabric of the property was falling into a more and more noticeable state of disrepair. Today, however, the Senior School site is owned by the Comer Homes Group, which specialises in new build developments, and the sympathetic and imaginative conversion of historic buildings. Comer Homes is now developing the site for residential use under the name "Royal Connaught Park" - the earlier name of the development was "JFK Park", but its current name is, of course, singularly appropriate. All the characteristics of the buildings will now be preserved - unfortunately, not as a school, but all the main buildings now have a secure future.

Apartments currently range in price from £300,000 to £3,000,000 (February 2007) and here are some links (on rightmove.co.uk) to the sales details.

This is what the Comer Homes Web page says about the Bushey site: "The original buildings were designed by the Victorian architects Gordon, Lowther and Gunton and the foundation stone was laid by Queen Victoria's son, the Duke of Connaught. The Royal Masonic School for Boys was to enjoy mixed fortunes during the twentieth century, finally closing its doors in 1977 when, after much wrangling, the building was sold."

Most importantly, for those us who went to the Schools, there are two embedded extracts from the film "The Vital Years" on the site, originally posted on Vimeo by David Ferdinando, who works for the Royal Masonic Trust for Girls and Boys.

"The Vital Years" was a promotional film made in 1966 and 1967 by the Royal Masonic Institution for Boys (RMIB), one of the fomer Masonic charities, to kindle amongst the Masonic community further interest in the Boys' Schools, since income for the Schools from Masons had been declining for many years. It was this inability to attract sufficient funding that was the root cause of the closure of, first the Junior School, and then the Senior School.

Interestingly, no such problem has occurred (or, at least, not to the same extent) for the Royal Masonic School for Girls in Rickmansworth, in the county of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom which has gone from strength to strength over the years.

I should like to thank David Ferdinando for posting the films of the Schools on Vimeo, as it has particular interest for me, as I was at the Junior School when the film was made. Despite being present at the filming on at least two occasions (in Science with Mr R Stewart and in English with Mr W Wilson), I seem to have avoided getting into either shot! We were made aware of the importance of the film to the Schools' survival when it was being made and we were given to understand that the Schools would be much better off as a result of the income that the film would generate...

Vimeo provides links for users to embed items in their own Web pages, so here is "The Vital Years" by courtesy of Vimeo:

David Ferdinando has posted several other films about the Royal Masonic Institution for Boys (RMIB), the Royal Masonic Institution for Girls (RMIG), the Masonic Trust for Girls and Boys (MTGB), and the Royal Masonic Trust for Girls and Boys (RMTGB) on his Vimeo Web page.

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