page_title: History of Stroud Green
section_title: Education of yesteryear
hierarchical_section_title: History of Stroud Green / Education / Education of yesteryear
caption_attribution_description: Original site of the Stroud Green and Hornsey High School for Girls
context_page_description: Stroud Green in London, England, is a suburb adjacent to Finsbury Park in the northern part of Greater London. While most of the area is in the London Borough of Haringey, a very small part is in the London Borough of Islington. The Stroud Green Road not only forms the boundary between the two boroughs but is also the area's principal thoroughfare and a busy local shopping street, with many popular restaurants and bars.
  The Stroud Green Road also represents a border between the ancient ecclesiastical parishes of Islington and Hornsey. At one time, this part of Hornsey parish, and thus Stroud Green, stretched into what is now Hackney, following the present-day Blackstock Road as far as the junction with Mountgrove Road, all beyond the Seven Sisters Road that today forms Stroud Green's eastern boundary. Here in that former part of Stroud Green was the site of the Eel Pie House, a tavern on the New River then the New River ran above ground at this point. This was originally in a wooden, lead-lined aqueduct - known locally as the Boarded River - but eventually that wooden construction was replaced by a raised earth embankment, atop which the river ran.
context_section_description: In 1659 Roger Draper of Stroud Green left £120 to apprentice six poor boys of Hornsey to freemen of London in trades other than those of silk-weaver, tailor, and vintner; premiums of £15 for the master and £5 for clothing and equipping the boy were to be paid, not more than two each year.
   No 175 Stroud Green Road, built in the 1860s, began life as a girls school, although by the 1880s it had become the home of George Osborne Barratt, founder of the famous brand of sweets and liquorice made nearby in Wood Green. By 1899 it had been bought by a local draper, a Welshman called David Hall, who soon acquired the two adjacent properties (173 and 177), to create a large shop on the ground floor.
  In 1890, Stroud Green had at least 21 private schools, including the forerunners of St. Aidan's Primary School and Hornsey High School for Girls, and there were two denominational grammar schools for boys.
  
  The Anglo-French high school, established c.1884, had 100 pupils of all ages in Ferme Park Road in 1889 and opened a girls' branch in Ridge Road in 1890. 
  Stapleton Hall School for Girls, at no. 54 and later also at no. 34 Stapleton Hall Road, was run by the Misses Elfick from 1898 or earlier, until 1935. It seems reasonable, therefore, to conjecture that this school had moved to Stapleton Hall Road from 175 Stroud Green Road (see above). 
  At the northern end of Crouch Hill by 1898 there were schools at nos. 102 and 104, called Durham House and Cecile House, no. 110, preparatory and kindergarten departments of Cecile House, and no. 112, Darra House. Other schools in Stroud Green included Hornsey Rise College, Victoria Road, in 1872, Rothbury House college, for day-boys, in 1879, and Victoria College, Florence Road, in the 1880s. Frederick Newcombe, who conducted a collegiate school in Muswell Hill Road, apparently had moved from Stroud Green.
  Stroud Green and Hornsey High School for Girls, was opened by the Church Schools' Co. in 1887. It occupied a cramped site, on the corner of Stapleton Hall and Albany roads, and had no playground in 1906, when there were 150 places and 111 pupils. The school, subsidized by the company to supplement the fees, was taken over by local governors in 1919 and grant aided by Middlesex County Council from 1928. It became an elementary, Voluntary Controlled school in 1948 on the removal of older girls to Hornsey High School for Girls, and was renamed St. Aidan's. A new building was opened in 1972 but the old yellow-brick hall was retained.
  The nearby Stroud Green (Girls) High School (c.1887) was a private venture established by a Mrs. Mills-Carver and comprised a new building at the corner of Addington and Oakfield roads, with its grounds backing those of the teachers' and boarders' houses. In 1906 there were 150 places and 130 pupils of all ages, including six boarders whose payments were needed for solvency. Competition with the nearby Stroud Green and Hornsey High School for Girls was mutually damaging but plans for amalgamation had to wait until 1948. Meanwhile, in 1908 Stroud Green (Girls) High School was taken over by Middlesex County Council to become Hornsey High School for Girls, a counterpart to the Stationers' (boys) School and in 1915 it moved to new buildings nearby its new partner. In 1948 it eventually succeeded in absorbing the Stroud Green and Hornsey High School for Girls, whose former site became St Aidan's primary school. In 1972 Hornsey High School for Girls became a girls comprehensive school located in entirely new premises in Crouch End, its former premises were acquired by the Stationers' school.
  St. Peter-in-Chains Roman Catholic school for infants was open by 1959 in Elm Grove, close to St. Gilda's junior school. Originally independent, it was Voluntary Aided in 1969 and had 206 infants on the roll in 1975.
  The position for those reliant on free education was more precarious. A report of 1890 showed that secondary education for the sons of the poor of Stroud Green was being provided by local churches. A grammar school for 'sons of parents of limited means' occupied an iron room
caption: The site of the original Stroud Green and Hornsey High School for Girls is now the playground of St Aidan's primary school, as seen in March 2008
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