Tulse Hill School - Buildings and Grounds

Buildings and Grounds

To house in excess of two thousand boys attending the school, its buildings were necessarily large, the main focus of which was a large glass clad building of eight floors, serviced by four lifts (until the late 1970s a lift operator would press the desired floor button for the students). In an attached annex was the Administration Block which also contained the kitchens and the Great Hall. Morning assembly was held in the hall which boasted an entirely professional stage lighting system by Strand Electric. Off this hall were a number of music rooms equipped with an orchestra of instruments. The massive ex-Rose Hill Gaumont Cinema organ, a two-manual Compton which had such entertainment effects as drums, cymbals and whistles removed before re-installation, had pride of place in the Great Hall and provided a unique musical experience as it blasted out items including the Trumpet Voluntary and the school song. Cracks which developed in the rear wall of the building were thought to have been caused by enthusiastic use of the lower registers on the instrument.

In addition to the main educational building there was a gym block, containing 6 gymnasiums, and a workshop block where woodwork, engineering and building trades were taught.

The main building suffered from serious structural subsidence in the 1980s and it was necessary to install huge wooden props at the Great Hall end to stabilise the structure. (actually wooden props in the great hall were in place in the early to mid-1960s and were there in 1966 due to severe cracks in the building - It was a common rumour amongst the pupils that the original design was for two four storey buildings but cost led to them being combined as one) The buildings were demolished in the early 1990s. Following demolition, the site was bought by a housing association and homes for 160 people have since been built on the ex-school site, most infamous as the estate from which Jean Charles de Menezes emerged on the day of his fatal shooting. As at 1997, the school entrance and the caretaker's cottage remained on site. House builders on site said that the school building basement (plant) level remained, as it had simply been "filled" in. After the school had been demolished in the 1990s, excavations revealed an early Saxon settlement which included eight sunken-floored buildings.