Maypole School was built in 1912. The Macmillan School Register ( MSR ) of attendance shows that the first pupils filed in on 10th February 1913. The red brick buildings and the high red brick walls around them survived for over 85 years. Nearly five generations of local children have been educated there. Most, if not all, of the children from Maypole Estate were to attend and receive instruction within their formative years. James Frederick SNELL was appointed to be the first headmaster of Maypole School. He was 37 years old upon taking up his post. He was to remain as headmaster for the next 22 years until his retirement in September 1935. The contemporary KELLY's Directory of local professionals showed the first mistress was Miss Ida McCURDY. This has not been supported, however, by the Macmillan register or anyone that I have spoken to. It may be just an omission from that register. The first mistress on the day of opening is shown in the register as being Miss Fanny PAYNE aged 23 years. She was accompanied a week later by Mrs Katy BROOKWELL aged 27 years (who only stayed, originally, for two weeks). and shortly after by Gabriel MENDOZA aged 22 years. The following month Miss Beatrice HIGGS also aged 22 years joined the staff - and so it began. The very first pupil in the register is shown as being Percy BAXTER from 13 Denton Terrace aged 13 years. The next two were his brother Edward aged 10 years and his sister Florence aged 8 years - who sadly died 5 years later in 1918 whilst still registered as a pupil at the school. These were the very first three of the first 111 pupils to be recorded in the register as being welcomed on the first day of opening.




By December in that inaugural year the register showed 187 entries for admission and readmission. There were a number of departures - but it would be safe to say that there were approximately 150 children at the school in December 1913. In that month the following 5 teachers were in their posts; Fanny PAYNE, Beatrice HIGGS, Elizabeth HOLMES, Kathleen PINKNEY and J R HIGGS. They were overseen, as already mentioned, by the headmaster Mr SNELL. Originally, a number of children from outlying areas such as Crayford and Bexley Village also attended Maypole. Manor Gate - a large house facing the heath in Common Lane at Leyton Cross - was another catchment source. Mr MAIDMENT was shown to be the guardian of at least 53 children from Manor gate who attended the school within the first two years (1913-1915). Manor Gate was probably used at that time by the Local Authority as a childrens home. In the 1970s/1980s it was used as a rehabilitation centre for those with psychiatric problems and addictions. It is now a care home for the elderly. Manor Gate is a large detached residence constructed probably in the mid Victorian era.

The O.S. Map of 1869 shows that there is a building on the site named 'Claytons Croat' This may be one and the same or possibly an older house, now demolished to make way for Manor gate. The children from Manor gate must have walked daily, both in file and clusters, across the heath in comparative safety. Motor cars were not so common. The horse and cart and the pony and trap were still predominant along the road to Bexley. Not a sodium street light in sight and not the sound of a car to be heard for miles.



It was a time before motorway drone and before the sound of busy, fractious helicopters flying overhead. It was a time when you could almost hear nature breath. Even in my short time, I now view the heath as a reflection of what it once was . To me, it appears that nature occasionally splutters into life and coughs at season change - but most of the time it wheezes out an existence, manacled relentlessly by the tarmac spiders' web of mother motorway and the tentacles of its' insidious feeder roads. The once dominant heathers that wore a mantle of purple hue to welcome the early summer have all gone. On a sweltering summers day you could once hear the hissing of the broom and gorse or the popping of their seed sacks. Not now, for it is all overshadowed by the sound of the A2.






The late Mr Alfred PETERS, (the Fireman's' son who once lived in West Lodge, Bexley Hospital) remembered the heath c 1926. He descibed it to me “as an expanse of heather from the school - all the way down Denton Road to the Crayford side. From the school, vision was interrupted only by the odd silver birch and hawthorn“. He also describes classes in the school at this time as averaging 40 children in number. The school day was 0900hrs - 1200hrs, 2 hours lunch break and then 1400hrs - 1600hrs. The child mortality rate through the decades is reflected in the registers of the school. The following children died whilst registered as pupils at the school and recorded in the MacMILLAN Regsiters:-


Name Address Date last attended and remarks in register

WOOD MILLIE aged 12 yrs of 8 BALDWYNS ROAD 1917/01/8TH - DECEASED

BAXTER FLORENCE IRENE aged 14 yrs of 13 DENTON TERRACE 1918/10/22ND - DEATH

SMITH SIDNEY aged 6 yrs of ROSE COTTAGE BEACONSFIELD ROAD 1919/02/14TH - DEATH

HOGAN KATHERINE aged 11yrs of 30 BALDWYNS ROAD 1919/04/06TH - DEATH


HENN RUBY MARGARET aged 4 yrs of 5 BALDWYNS ROAD 1927/12/23RD - DEATH


GOSLING RONALD LESLIE aged 4 yrs of 24 BALDWYNS ROAD 1929/02/11TH - DEATH


HUNT DOUGLAS HAROLD aged 9 yrs of WOODVIEW TILE KILN LANE 1934/02/02ND - RUN OVER AND KILLED ON THE ROAD.


STEVENS ANNIE aged 9 yrs of 26 CLIVE AVENUE 1944/07/13TH - KILLED BY FLYING BOMB


WILSON HELEN LOUISE aged 6 yrs of 10 TILE KILN LANE 1950/07/25TH - DECEASED

LIBBERT (SIBBERT?) RICHARD ALLEN aged 5 yrs of 10 HILL CRESCENT 1951/06/08TH - DIED UNDER ANAESTHETIC 11th June 1951


DENNIS MICHAEL JOHN aged 10 yrs of 153 TILE KILN LANE 1954/05/11TH - DECEASED TUMOUR OF THE BRAIN


MILES CHRISTINE MAVIS aged 11 yrs of 22 PARK VIEW (OLD BEXLEY LANE) 1954/07/23RD - IN HOSPITAL - DECEASED AUGUST 1956

"Death devours lambs as well as sheep" - proverb

The above entry relating to Douglas HUNT in 1934 now bears out a story told to me by Mr Phillip RUMBELOW, a previous resident of the estate. He stated that he remembered a tragic road traffic accident. Two brothers were walking along Old Bexley Lane towards the 'Dip' (A local name for the junction with Baldwyns Park) Their father was a Postman. He had recently been given a Post Office van to drive. The brothers were walking along the top of a ridge of earth that formed a bank against the high wall of the Hospital Gardens. As they were near the vicinity of St Barnabas Church they spotted their father driving his Post Office van. In the excitement at seeing their father one of them slipped (or slid down) the bank and under the wheels. I believe that this was Douglas. Mr RUMBELOW stated that the boys' father never recovered from the tragedy. This is supported by the fact that the School Register shows that the younger brother, Charles, was removed some four months later - having 'left the district'. If the above is incorrect then we offer our most sincere apologies

Another of the above entries relating to Christine MILES refers to a child who had a tragic ailment - in that one side of her body grew normally - and the other did not. She eventually died from this condition. (Wendy SAUNDERS)

Below - programme for 1963 Summer Concert

Link to List of some pupils 1958-1968

George Stockford Caretaker c1960-1965

and below same location c2002




and below under demolition 2005




and below - gone . . . . .

Video below of demolition

From the 'History of the Rolling Stones' another piece of trivia about the school ' Formed in 1962, The Rolling Stones have become one of the world's most recognized and enduring bands. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards first crossed paths at Dartford Maypole County Primary School. A decade later the two had become avid fans of blues and American R&B, and shared a mutual friend in musician Dick Taylor. Jagger and Taylor were jamming together in Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys. Richards would soon join the group and become expelled from Dartford Technical College for truancy '.

The school was demolished in 2005 and is now a housing complex.

And as it looks now . . . . .

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Video footage of the school prior to closure in it's last summer . . . . .

. . . .

One of the classrooms . . .

Useful links
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/user/08/u1507408.shtml

Maypole School on Facebook . . . . .

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