| StorageSite | UCL Institute of Education |
| Description | Hertfordshire was the scene of the most innovative and wide scale advances in post-war British school-building during the 1940s.
John Newsom had become Chief Education Officer for the County Council in 1940 and he was extremely vocal about the need
for building reform in Britain's schools. Newsom gathered a strong team around him and in 1943 when a national Ministry of Works
programme of huts for school canteens in areas that had not previously offered a school-meals service began, he appointed
Mary Crowley (later Medd) to supervise the project.
In 1945, C.H. Aslin was appointed to the post of Hertfordshire County Architect. Until that date there had been no architect's
department and Aslin was swiftly joined by Stirrat Johnson-Marshall as his Deputy. A new group of architects, including
David Medd, also arrived and Mary Crowley switched over from the Education Department in 1946.
That Autumn, a close cooperation between the HCC Architects Department and the Ministry of Education began and the first
project was to be the Burleigh Primary School at Cheshunt. It was designed for 320 pupils, but the Infants wing of the school
was to act as a prototype to provide a basis for the next stage. The planning took the form of three separate small units. |