Country Life Article Spring 2018

A country education Royal Masonic School, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire

From the late 19th century, there was a steady exodus of schools from central London. James Bettley explores the artistic treasures of one such: a remarkably lavish girls’ school begun by the Masons in 1930 Photographs by Justin Paget 104 Country Life, February 28, 2018

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or centuries, Hertfordshire has been seen as London’s healthy neighbour; in the words of the topographer Robert Morden, ‘the rich soil and wholesome air, and the excellency of the county, have drawn hither the wealthiest citizens of London’ (1701). Since 1613, it had, moreover, been the principal source of London’s drinking water, thanks to Sir Hugh Myddelton’s New River, which ran from Chadwell Spring, Ware, to Islington.

These qualities, combined with its proximity to the capital, made the county a highly suitable location for schools and, as early as 1564, Christ’s Hospital boarded www.countrylife.co.uk

Fig 1 above left: The clock tower at the entrance to the assembly hall is the focus of the whole plan. Fig 2 above right: The entrance to the administration block. The brickwork of the buildings is articulated with stone detailing, mostly executed by Joseph Cribb

younger children in Ware until they were ready to go to the main school in London.

In the late 19th century, the exodus of schools from London to Hertfordshire intensified. This was partly a response to the congestion of the capital, but it also resulted from the expansion of these institutions and the demand for larger premises with playing fields. Among the largest such schools to make the move were the Royal Masonic Schools for, respectively, Boys and Girls. The boys’ school, founded in 1798, moved to Bushey in 1902, to magnificent www.countrylife.co.uk

buildings by Gordon, Lowther & Gunton.

These closed in 1977 and have been successfully converted to apartments.

The girls’ school was founded 10 years earlier than the boys’ by an Italian-born dentist and Freemason, Bartholomew Ruspini, whose patients included the Dowager Princess of Wales. Such was his respectability that he supplied dentifrice in tins stamped with his coat of arms and, in 1789, he was created Chevalier of the Order of the Golden Spur.

The declared purpose of the school was for ‘maintaining, clothing and educating

an unlimited number of the Female Children and Orphans of indigent Brethren belonging to the Ancient and Honorable Society of Free and Accepted Masons’, with the view of ‘training them up in the love and knowledge of Virtue [and] in the habits of Industry’. Particularly where virtue was concerned, the education of girls was clearly seen as a higher priority than that of boys.

The school was established under the patronage of the Duchess of Cumberland in a house in Somers Town, north of Euston ➢ Country Life, February 28, 2018 105

Road, before moving in 1795 to purpose-built premises in St George’s Fields, Southwark, designed by Francis Carter. In 1852, it moved again, to buildings by Philip Hardwick near Clapham Junction, to which F. G. Knight added a large Centenary Hall in 1891. By 1922, however, the buildings were becoming too crowded and there was no possibility of expansion due to the proximity of the railway.

The search for a new site led, in 1926, to Rickmansworth Park, a 204-acre estate on the north side of the town. The house itself had been built in the early years of the 19th century and boasted a fine tetrastyle Ionic portico that may have been intended to rival that of Moor Park on the other side of Rickmansworth.

It had failed to sell at auction in 1920 and, in 1926, a price of £65,000 was agreed, on condition that the owner, Lady Barrington, be allowed to remain in the house for another two years. This suited the school, which organised a competition for new buildings in 1928, assessed by Henry V. Ashley and won by Denman & Son of Brighton.

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In the late 19th century, the exodus of schools from London intensified

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John Leopold Denman was the son and grandson of Brighton architects and his considerable body of work is almost entirely in or near that town. He was also a Freemason and, in 1928, had remodelled the Masonic Centre in Queen’s Road, Brighton, as well as giving a striking Art Deco facelift to the Freemasons Tavern in Hove.

The opportunity of designing the girls’ school would have been irresistible, and although the entries were anonymous, there may have been aspects of the design that would have indicated that the entry was by a fellow Mason. Lorna Cowburn, a teacher at the school for many years and author of its history, Polished Cornerstones (2001), points to the arrangement of the boarding houses in a semicircle, like a rising or setting sun, and plan of interlocking Ts of the principal buildings that evoke the ‘triple tau’ of Royal Arch Masonry.

Be that as it may, the foundation stone for the new buildings was laid in July 1930 by the Grand Master, the Duke of Connaught, and the school was opened by Queen Mary in June 1934.

The plan of the new school is, like most school buildings of this date, formal, symmetrical and generous in its layout. A straight approach from the entrance, with lodge, leads up to the administration block (Fig 2), 106 Country Life, February 28, 2018

Fig 3: Two months of the year, from a cycle painted by Louis Ginnett in the assembly hall

flanked by lawns with the sanatorium on the north side and chapel on the south. Facing the east end of the chapel is the dining hall at the south end of the administration block, the two large components differing in detail from each other, but symmetrical on plan.

Between them and at right angles is the assembly hall, with a clock tower at its north end (Fig 1). A stair in the tower leads to the former library (Fig 6). To its left and right are two quadrangles, with classrooms mainly along the south side, where a 220-yard corridor runs the entire width of the group.

From each end of this corridor springs the semicircle of eight boarding houses, connected by covered walkways, so that all parts of the school—apart from the isolated sanatorium—may be reached under cover.

The old house was demolished, but some of its trees remain in the garth in front of the boarding houses.

The buildings were constructed of red brick with pantiled roofs and sparing use of Clipsham-stone dressings. This may suggest austerity (and there is something almost brutal about the clock tower), but this is far from being the case, thanks to the team of artists and designers who worked with Denman on the project.

Denman ran the architecture section of Brighton School of Art and also knew many of the craftsmen who worked at Ditchling, home of Eric Gill from 1907 to 1924, and where he founded the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic in 1921. The sculptor Joseph Cribb, Gill’s assistant, worked with Denman on many of his buildings, includ-

Fig 4 above: The interior of the barrelvaulted chapel sensitively combines bricks of different sizes and colours.

Fig 5 right: One of the chapel lunettes, showing the Sermon on the Mount, by Louis Ginnett. The palette and treatment is strongly influenced by the PreRaphaelites

ing at Rickmansworth; others involved in decorating the school buildings were Louis Ginnett, who taught at the School of Art, and Charles Knight, one of Ginnett’s pupils.

Cribb was principally responsible for stone carving on the exterior of the buildings, designed by Ginnett and Knight, and replete with symbolism: over the three doors to the chapel are, for example, carvings of a dove, a peacock (for the Resurrection) ➢ www.countrylife.co.uk

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and a sailing ship. The clock tower carries the most carving, with a group over the entrance including figures of Phosphor and Hesper (Light and Darkness) and, on the corners of the top of the tower, representations of the four winds.

In a niche against the blank east wall of the chapel is a statue of Ruspini, sculpted

by E. Roscoe Mullins for the Centenary Hall of the previous school in 1891. There is more carving by Cribb in the chapel, but what catches the eye here, apart from the majesty of the barrel-vaulted nave (Fig 4), are the painted lunette panels on the side walls by Ginnett depicting the Sermon on the Mount (Fig 5) and other episodes from the New Testament.

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The school has many more delightful surprises, including the swimming bath

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Ginnett also designed and painted the principal stained-glass windows, with figures of female saints, that were made by Cox & Barnard; other stained glass was designed

by Dudley Jarrett, best known as an illustrator, and Elizabeth Tatchell, another student at Brighton College of Art. The east wall is covered by a carved and partly painted reredos and Omar Ramsden made the altar furniture.

Knight’s principal contribution is found in the dining hall (Fig 8), in the shape of painted panels, high up and difficult to see, but out of harm’s way: a series of 16 pictures of animals or plants that are the source of food, including some ingredients (such as duck) that probably did not often find their way on to the menu (Fig 9).

In the assembly hall, Ginnett painted panels of the Months of the Year and the Four Elements and female figures in Classical dress, but with more than a touch of the flapper about them (Fig 3). What is most striking here, however, is the stained glass and the tall, round-headed windows filled with the arms of Masonic lodges and other benefactors of the school. Most of this was made for and transferred from the Centenary Hall in Clapham, adapted and augmented as necessary by Ginnett and Tatchell with Cox & Barnard.

The old glass was by E. R. Frampton, who was also responsible for a remarkable series of smaller windows of literary subjects. These were added over the years, from 1891 to 1904, and were transferred to various locations round the new buildings, but especially in the corridors round the assembly hall.

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Fig 8: The dining hall. The light fittings and the detailing over the windows are typical of the Art Deco touches found throughout the school Fig 6 above: The clocktower stair rises to the former library. In front of the window stands Lorenzo Bartolini’s sculpture Charity as Educator. Fig 7 below: The committee room, with its set of Windsor chairs gifted to the school in 1795

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The school has many more delightful surprises, including the swimming bath with its mosaic pavements designed by H. Morgan Rendle (another Brighton painter) and the set of 25 Windsor armchairs given to the school by the Caledonian Lodge in 1795. These furnish the very comfortable committee room at the north end of the administration block (Fig 7); at the south end is a dining room for the governors of the school.

In addition to all the school offices, the administration block also housed sitting rooms and bedrooms for the headmistress and matron—a separate house for the headmistress was not built until 1967.

In spite of the inevitable demands of a growing and changing school—which remains girls only (with boys in the pre-school) and has been independent since 1978—the buildings have been sympathetically adapted and augmented. Denman & Son designed additional buildings between 1954 and 1970, the latter year seeing the opening of the octagonal domed library designed by Denman’s son, John Bluet Denman, who was also a Freemason.

In keeping with the artistic tradition, it houses a polished bronze sculpture of a dove www.countrylife.co.uk

Fig 9: Four details of the dining-hall paintings showing animals and plants for the table by Charles Knight, a pupil of Louis Ginnett, who himself was involved in decorating the school

by John Skelton, who was Gill’s nephew and apprenticed first to him and then to Cribb, installed in 1982.

More recently, Edward Smart has added a new hall and main entrance, opened in 1996, and sports centre (1998), part of changes that are enabling a school designed nearly 90

years ago to meet the very different needs and expectations of a modern girls’ school without losing the characteristics that make it quite unlike any other.

The Royal Masonic School for Girls, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire (01923 773168; www.rmsforgirls.org.uk) Country Life, February 28, 2018 109