Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Stationers Boys School

I was chatting today to someone who grew up here in the 1970s and 1980s and she mentioned a boys secondary school that was a companion to Hornsey School for girls. I'd never heard of it so asked for more details - it turms out there was a boys secondary school called Stationers that was based where Stationers Park is on Mayfield Road just over the tracks in Crouch End.

Am posting in case others find it of interest - I had always assumed that Stationers park was built on an old bomb site so was really interested to hear this. It closed in 1983 apparently.

I don't know how much of the current park site it took up, and whether it occupied any of the space now taken by Weston Park primary school. But it was clearly a large school - there is a picture from the 1920s on the old boys website which must have been taken towards the top of the current park (where the basketball court is now) - I've attached a copy. Edited - in fact now wonder if this picture was taken even further up, perhaps where the newer housing is on Denton Road.
http://www.oldstationers.co.uk

Some more details here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stationers'_Company's_School

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Permalink Reply by Richard Woods on January 31, 2014 at 15:40

Super piece Mr Dent! Thank you. You are so right - many of the masters were ex service and some insisted on their rank (Major Hall - I can write faster than anyone1) and the 60s must have been traumatic for many. Sam was a favourite and i am pleased to hear he did OK; he was very well qualified as I recall from the shawls he wore at founders day! Founders! Wooo - that takes me back. Prize day was always called that in the 50s and we decamped to Hornsey Town Hall (oh wonderful place sadly missed) as all 650 boys, masters, governors, company people and parents would not fill the school hall. If we behaved well enough we got a Founders Day off!

If anyone knows what happened to Kirby (54-56 - rusticated) I'd love to know; the word was he was the one who chained Nick Naylor's beloved Jaguar to the headmaster's garden railings and instead of uprooting the railings it ripped the bumper off Nick's car! Either way sacking must have been a no-brainer.

I left at the end of 1959 having done some re-sits. But I worked locally for a few years (training on the Hornsey Journal) but sadly I was pretty disaffected and paid scant regard to events at Mayfield Avenue and ignored the Old Boys Assoc. However 50 years later when a bunch of the year of b54 decided to have a reunion in London I went along - amazing day. The reunion continues and events have kept me away but I shall be there this year for the 60th - I guess most of us in the nuclear shrouded 50s and 60s did not really expect to be around in 2014...

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Permalink Reply by Mike the Moustache on December 21, 2016 at 21:23

I was at Stationers' from 66 to 72 so our time overlapped. I can't say it was the happiest time of my life, and this is one reason why I don't associate with the OSA.

The building were - in memory - magnificent and they went perfectly with the sense of tradition that was instilled into us. It is a great shame that the buildings were vandalised in the way they were.

With reference to the huts on the 'wilderness' between the two schools - my recollection is that they were art classrooms and metalwork workshops. There was also a two story prefabricated set of classrooms in the main playground on the right hand side, looking away from the main buildings.

I remember when we boys were first let into the old girls school - we were somewhat bemused by the wall mounted miniture gas incinerators in the girls toilets! A much more innocent age.....

I do remember there being a ban on fraternisation between the boys at Stationers and the Girls of Hornsey High - and I clearly remember the uproar when girls started being brought to use the new Language Lab!

It was a strict, probably mysogenistic, establishment that gave those whose faces fitted a first class education, but if you were not university material, then you were left to sink to your own level.

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Permalink Reply by Richard Woods on December 21, 2016 at 23:55

Good stuff. Fraternisation took place - a lot of it in what we called the wilderness, behind St Paul's (?) church. The vicar in the 50s complained to the head over what took place there and the, shall I say, detritus that was left behind...

The senior girls at Hornsey were allowed to use a house in Inderwick Road as a sixth form 'club' - for some time the challenge was to get inside without being caught. It came to a sad end of course.

Bottom of the hill was a fag shop in which further interraction with the as I recall burgundy clad irls of Hornsey High took place. The head at that time (name lost to mind) was the 'friend' of the mayor of Hornsey, Alderman Fred Cave, when i was on the HJ - I guess today we would have 'outed' them with glee!

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Permalink Reply by Richard Woods on August 12, 2024 at 12:46

Just a few points from an Old Stationer (54-60): It was only a three form entry school so had about 650 boys. This was small by the standards then and now. Despite my politics I lament its closure; Haringey council were utterly wrong. Combining it with Hornsey High as an aspirational comprehensive would have been a far better idea and retained the history and charms within Stationers and provided space for growth.