Putney County School Remembered
What was there before the Ashcroft Technical Academy
Gardening instead of Latin and Greek at Putney County
August 3, 2023
What is now Ashcroft Technical Academy, was ADT, before then it was the girls, comprehensive Mayfield and before that the grammar school Putney County Secondary School
Founded in 1907 Putney County moved to the Mayfield site on West Hill in 1910. The modern campus dates from the physical upgrade and extension when it became a comprehensive in 1955. During the war the school was evacuated to Woking.
In “Great Days & Jolly Songs. The story of girls school songs” by Celia Haddon there are a wonderful set of photos from the Putney school in 1918. They showed how slavish were the schools in their imitation of boys’ public schools. Right down to the architecture, Putney’s dome and tower being a case in point. Muscular Christianity ruled the roost and playing games was a vital part. Though football was “quite out of the question on account of its roughness”.
Times were changing and many of the new girls’ schools felt the traditional public school models of compulsory Latin and Greek was no longer relevant. Putney experimented with gardening lessons.
But girls playing sports had a vital impact on what they wore, long skirts and stays were not compatible with playing, hockey, cricket and tennis. Note the picture of the Putney girls playing tennis. But it took a long time for undergarments to change.
Tennis at Putney County
One girl remembers, “Large knickers made of denim which were thick and hot with elastic so tight I thought we would be permanently scarred.”
Knickers that came with a risk of scarring
The formality of schools which lasted until the 1960s was shown by the insistence on staff wearing their university gowns – see the picture of Putney’s head mistress.
The headmistress of Putney County in full university gown
Hugh Thompson
Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism. Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets. We've always done that and won't be changing, in fact we'd like to do more. However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do. We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area. A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site. One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute. If you do support us in this way we'd be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor. For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you'd like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site. |