inner–london schools 1918–44 a thematic study - English Heritage

Fig 71: The buildings of the Geere House Open-Air school in 2009. The classroom pavilions are to the left andpart of the dining/rest shelter can be made out ot the right (DP070357.).With the exception of Aspen House, the only other surviving LCC open-air school isGeere House. This was a small school in the garden of 37 Stepney Green, then used aseducational offices. Its two pavilion classrooms accommodated 25 children each; therewas also a rest shelter. The total cost was £3,525, and the school opened in April 1927. 59Geere House closed at the beginning of the war and its pupils billeted in South Ascot,Berkshire. 60 The buildings continued in educational use until at least 1964. 61 They are nowvacant. 62Most of the open-air schools closed in 1939 and their number was reduced by bombingor post-war redevelopment. Other sites re-opened after the war, and open-air schoolswere sometimes rebuilt, as at Bow Road, which became Farquharson & McMorran’sPhoenix School of 1951-52. The development of an antibiotic treatment for tuberculosisin the 1940s made the extremesof open-air teaching increasinglyredundant, and the LCC glazedmany of its pavilion classrooms inthe 1950s.Fig 72: Rest/dining shelter at the Geere House Open-Air school,Stepney Green, L B Tower Hamlets (LCC AD, 1927). (L M A : SC /PHL /02/0428 - 45; City of London, London Metropolitan Archives).Despite the early start madeby the LCC, the most influentialEnglish model for open-aireducation started as a nonprovidedschool. In 1914 theMcMillan sisters Rachael (1859-1917) and Margaret (1860-1931)opened an open-air nursery inDeptford. By the 1930s it was© ENGLISH H ER I TAG E 43 - 20 0974