Hertingfordbury Cowper Primary School, Birch Green (2)

Image: © Stefan Czapski Taken: 17 Feb 2013

The building looks as if it may date from the 1880's or '90's. In any case, unlike many Victorian and Edwardian schools in more urban situations, it was built to a scale that would these days be thought 'child-friendly'. Elsewhere, many village schools have been converted for residential purposes, so it is good to see that in this part of Hertfordshire a number of pre-1914 school buildings still serve their original purpose. Update, August 2015: My original guess was that this building was late-Victorian. My thanks go to John Webb, who has discovered a Historic England listing http://list.historicengland.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1341462 which suggests a date of about 1850. To my mind, the earlier date goes a long way to explaining the 'child-friendly' scale - its contemporaries are the so-called 'National' and 'British' schools, which were generally built to a more 'cottagey' scale than the late-Victorian Board schools. Compare: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3504043 http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3382613 The listing also points out that part of the Cowper School has been converted for residential purposes - a detail that had escaped me!

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