St Joseph's Catholic Primary School
Drag the round handle to slide between the old map (left) and today (right). On a phone, tap the map once to move it.
Then
The Catholic parish was set up in 1952 for the new estate, and a presbytery soon followed. The school was built for the new parish, in about 1955 according to Taking Stock and Wikipedia, which would put it before the 1960 church, though another local listing suggests around 1960. A parent remembers each pupil bringing a penny a week towards a brick for the new church. A pupil remembers the head master, Mr Pitt, sending the children home early one November morning in 1961 as heavy snow began to settle. The 1962 outing was a coach trip to the paddling pool at Cassiobury Park. Silkin House and Corbett House, two eight-storey blocks of flats, were built between 1962 and 1963, and local historian Neil Hamilton places them opposite the school. A pupil of the early 1960s remembers passing the two new blocks on his walk there.5,141,149,157,177,300,440,566,568,569,570,578,596
Now
Both blocks have since gone, and houses stand on their site. In 2013 Neil Hamilton found old metal fencing on the school's boundary with Paddock Spring swallowed by trees and shrubs, and suggested it may mark the edge of the Oxhey Place grounds. A neighbour says a spring seems to rise at the school gates. It is still a Catholic primary school on Ainsdale Road, voluntary aided, for children aged 3 to 11.
Mentioned in
- The old woods: Oxhey Woods, part by part Before the Estate
Position from OpenStreetMap. See Sources and method.