Over the past year, our NLCS campus has changed significantly – we have re-opened the Drawing School and opened the Ideas Hub. We have created additional spaces for Sixth Form students on the ground floor of the Old House. And thanks to a generous legacy, we have completely refurbished the Richardson teaching block.
As the holiday beckons, our work on providing inspiring spaces for our students to learn and relax in has also made me think about the nature of space in schools when the pupils are not in session. Schools have a Holiday Alter Ego which its pupils will never know. I have wandered the corridors, classrooms and playing fields of North London Collegiate School ‘out of season’, checking up on the spaces of Canons like forgotten old friends. As Halloween approaches, this blog is dedicated to the Ghosts of Canons.
The ghosts are not the people who have worked here or studied here but rather the spaces in the school that I love to greet when the School is not in School. These are the spaces which yield up memories not just of the pupils and colleagues of the present day, but of generations of pupils and staff who have walked our grounds. The spaces are silent but if you listen carefully they whisper memories at you.
My favourite space like this is an oft-neglected part of the grounds – the pagoda at the edge of the South Tennis Courts. Perhaps because it reminds of the initial proposal scene in the film version of Pride & Prejudice with Keira Knightley (inferior of course to the epic BBC drama series of the 1990s). Perhaps because I am British and therefore love an underdog – and this poor little pagoda is never visited by your daughters. Perhaps because it reminds me of the glory days of Canons when the whole of the park was part of the estate. Perhaps because I dream of little poetry seminars sitting on its benches.
The pagoda at the edge of the South Courts
My second favourite space is the staircase of the Old House where we display the Fantasy Fashion dresses. The display currently features our 175 I wandered lonely as a cloud daffodil extravaganza (for those who are new, daffodils are the flowers with which we process on Founder’s Day in March). The dresses are spectacular.
The Old House Staircase with Fantasy Fashion Dresses
My third favourite space is another secret gem, though not so secret to the children in Reception. It is Little Canons and the mud kitchen in our Forest School over on the opposite side of the campus. I love walking the X-trail from time to time and coming across evidence of NLCS Bears at Work in the forest. A stray plastic saucepan, the remains of a wooden den, or the Marie Antoinette style cottage, Little Canons.
Little Canons and the mud kitchen
There are many other spaces which conjure up memories. The gardens where we performed the Bacchae a couple of summers ago. The Anderson Reading Room with beautiful views onto the playing fields. The vista down Lime Avenue, beloved by so many Old North Londoners. And of course, Miss Buss staring benignly down at me opposite my study each morning.
The gardens, The Anderson Reading Room and Lime Avenue
As you and your families enjoy the half term break, these spaces will fall silent once more. But I know that the true magic of Canons lies not in its buildings and grounds alone, but in the interplay between past and present, between the memories held in these walls and the vibrant voices of the girls who bring them to life each day.
Wishing you all a restful and enjoyable half term.
The portrait of Frances Mary Buss
