Elmfield College - 1940s and After

1940s and After

All that is left of the college now is numbers 1 (the former "Elm Field Villa"), and 9 Straylands Grove, next to Monk Stray, and a row of masters' houses along Elmfield Terrace (as far as the first bend). Domestic staff housing may have been down in Willow Grove, off Elmfield Terrace, although these terraced cottages predate the masters' housing and are associated with a large house, Eden Place, that occupied the Elmfield Terrace frontage onto Monk Stray until at least World War I. No 1 Willow Grove was the Tuck Shop. No 5 Willow Grove is larger than the other houses on this row and included the music school.

The present No. 9 Straylands Grove was built in the 1920s as the headmaster's house. (The owners have recently renamed the house to reflect this fact).

Number 1 used to have, in its garden, a very basic swimming pool of peculiar (triangular?) shape. Whether the head master allowed access to it by the pupils is unrecorded. Since closure of the College, the house has been an art gallery and a family home.

Elmfield Terrace and Willow Grove remained privately maintained streets until the 1950s when they were adopted by York City Council. Until this time, Elmfield Terrace was almost completely separated from Straylands Grove by a 6 foot wall (parallel to Straylands) with signs of the gate that must have existed to maintain its private status.

The area now covered by numbers 3-7 Straylands Grove, along with much of the surrounding land which was once belonged to the college, has now been built on.