10:06am Friday 2nd July 2010
By Michael Pickard
Mr G Wright, of Hagden Lane, Watford, has written to Nostalgia on the subject of a school in the town. He wrote: “The ‘School kept by three sisters’ could possibly have been Parkhurst (surely an unfortunate choice of name).
“This was a ‘Dame’ school ‘for girls and preparatory for boys’ run by the Wilshin sisters in West Watford, which I attended from 1930 to 1933.
“Numbers were small, probably ten to 12 pupils at most, and at first this school was located on an upper floor of a large house in Mildred Avenue, near the top of Hagden Lane hill.
“But then it transferred to a two-classroom single storey schoolhouse, which had been custom-built in the spacious back garden of a house in nearby Rickmansworth Road (but there was still no playground).
“Only two sisters taught; the third, Evie, was visually handicapped, and ‘looked after the house’, so there could only ever be two classes.
“Teaching was of a slightly religious flavour (Church of England) and at Rickmansworth Road, the sisters kept St Bernard dogs as pets.”
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/trade_directory/