page_title: Bruce Castle
section_title: The Hill School
hierarchical_section_title: Bruce Castle / The Hill School
caption_attribution_description: 19th century extension to Bruce Castle, London, built during its conversion into a school
context_page_description: Bruce Castle is a Grade I listed 16th-century manor house in Lordship Lane, Tottenham, London. It is named after the House of Bruce who formerly owned the land on which it is built. Believed to stand on the site of an earlier building, about which little is known, the current house is one of the oldest surviving English brick houses. It was remodelled in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
  The house has been home to Sir William Compton, the Barons Coleraine and Sir Rowland Hill, among others. After serving as a school during the 19th century, when a large extension was built to the west, it was converted into a museum exploring the history of the areas now constituting London Borough of Haringey and, on the strength of its connection with Sir Rowland Hill, the history of the Royal Mail. The building also houses the archives of the London Borough of Haringey. Since 1892 the grounds have been a public park, Tottenham's oldest.
context_section_description: Hill and his brothers had taken over the management of their father's school in Birmingham in 1819, which opened a branch at Bruce Castle in 1827, with Rowland Hill as Headmaster. The school was run along radical lines inspired by Hill's friends Thomas Paine, Richard Price and Joseph Priestley; all teaching was on the principle that the teacher's role is to instill the desire to learn, not to impart facts, corporal punishment was abolished and alleged transgressions were tried by a court of pupils, while the school taught a radical (for the time) curriculum including foreign languages, science and engineering. Among other pupils, the school taught the sons of many London-based diplomats, particularly from the newly independent nations of South America, and the sons of computing pioneer Charles Babbage.
  In 1839 Rowland Hill, who had written an influential proposal on postal reform, was appointed as head of the General Post Office (where he introduced the world's first postage stamps), leaving the school in the hands of his younger brother Arthur Hill.
  During the period of the School's operation, the character of the area had changed beyond recognition. Historically, Tottenham had consisted of four villages on Ermine Street (later the A10 road), surrounded by marshland and farmland. The construction of the Northern and Eastern Railway in 1840, with stations at Tottenham Hale and Marsh Lane (later Northumberland Park), made commuting from Tottenham to central London feasible for the first time (albeit by a circuitous eight-mile route via Stratford, more than double the distance of the direct road route), as well as providing direct connections to the Port of London. In 1872 the Great Eastern Railway opened a direct line from Enfield to Liverpool Street station, including a station at Bruce Grove, close to Bruce Castle; the railway provided subsidised workmen's fares to allow poor commuters to live in Tottenham and commute to work in central London. As a major rail hub, Tottenham grew into a significant residential and industrial area; by the end of the 19th century, the only remaining undeveloped areas were the grounds of Bruce Castle itself, and the waterlogged floodplains of the River Lea at Tottenham Marshes and of the River Moselle at Broadwater Farm.
  In 1877 Birkbeck Hill retired from the post of headmaster, ending his family's association with the school. The school closed in 1891, and Tottenham Council purchased the house and grounds. The grounds of the house were opened to the public as Bruce Castle Park in June 1892, the first public park in Tottenham. The house opened to the public as Bruce Castle Museum in 1906.
caption: 19th-century extension to house the school
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