EPW040889 ENGLAND (1933). The Merchant Taylors' School, Moor Park, 1933

A rare picture of the newly-opened Merchant Taylors' School after its move from the City of London and which continues to thrive eight decades later. In the middle distance and background, in this view looking almost due north, are two of the more important factories in the area, the Asbestos Works and Croxley Mill, neither of which survived beyond the 1980s.

Most of this image is taken up with the impressive new buildings at Merchant Taylors' School, Sandy Lodge, Moor Park, Middlesex, which had just opened when the photograph was taken. The school had been founded in 1561 and had previously been located in Inner London, at Charterhouse Square, Finsbury, EC1, with the added inconvenience of having to travel across the capital to the cricket ground at Bellingham, near Catford, SE6. The school was now located in the spacious surroundings (250 acres) in the Colne Valley, close to the Metropolitan Line station at Moor Park. Although the move was undoubtedly a good one for nearly all concerned, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack for 1934 asserts that, in their first season at the new ground, Merchant Taylors' did not come up to expectations, with only two victories from 13 matches played. Things improved markedly over the next 80 years!



Quite apart from the excellent facilities on site, there would soon be access to the newly created lakes at Hampermill, once the extraction of gravel had ceased. The first lake was available by the close of the decade and a second feature became accessible 25 years later, in 1960/61, for a wide range of water sports.



Moving beyond the medium-sized independent school is one of the major industrial factories of the area, the Asbestos Works on Tolpits Lane, which opened around the same time as the school. The writer knew it in 1961, when it was the Universal Asbestos Manufacturing Company which, in turn, became Cape Universal Claddings. Despite several extensions and modifications to the original Art Deco structure, the works closed in 1985, barely 50 years after setting up in this rural location.



Just visible in the background is Dickinson's Croxley Paper Mill, built in 1830 and which would last for a further 150 years.