Going to school next door to the pub (From Watford Observer)

Going to school next door to the pub

10:54am Friday 5th March 2010 in

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Mr AJ Perry, of Kenilworth Drive, Croxley Green, contacted Nostalgia with memories of Beechen Grove School.

He said: “After leaving St Andrews School in Sotheron Road, my education continued with my joining Beechen Grove School for my junior education.

“I have always thought that Beechen Grove School was unique in that it was next to a public house; its name was The Woodman with a man with his axe over his shoulder on the pub sign.

“The school I thought in later years looked as if it had been shoehorned into a small space, because only in Red Lion yard did it have any frontage onto a footpath.

“It had Rogers and Gowletts timber yard behind and the pub next door with Sheehan’s Smithy across the way.

“As I remember there were just four classrooms in the building and the playground was very small.

“The boys toilets were on the left in a corner of the playground and the main door took you through the cloakroom along a short corridor to the hall.

“A staircase led to two more classrooms on the upper floor; there was also a back staircase from the playground to the right.

“My recollection of teachers is just three, the head was Miss Dempster the other two were Miss Duke and Mr Rodgers he liked to pull boys along by their ears, it’s strange the things that one remembers.

“Being as it was near to the Watford market it was possible at playtime to hear the market traders calling their wares, this would have been on Tuesday, market day.

“Across from the school to the right was the entrance to Kinghams the grocers loading docks. There seemed to be lots for boys to look at especially on market day when the Woodman pub was doing a roaring trade.

“My favourite was watching the horses being shod in Sheehan’s smithy and the market traders pushing their barrows from the yards that were further along past the Woodman towards Beechen Grove.

“In the light of the recent shutting down of the country due to a couple of inches of snow, I would like to add that I can never remember having any time off because of the weather.

“We were expected to go come hell or high water, and we survived intact.”