IT HAS survived world wars, tragedies and even threats to close it down. Now Tylers Green First School marks its 150th anniversary this year.
The first children entered its doors on 28 August, 1876 (the summer holidays finished earlier in those days), and since then the school has been at the very heart of the Penn and Tylers Green community.
We’ll be featuring some of the highlights and challenges this lovely school has faced in articles for this blog throughout the year.
If you have any fond memories you could share please send them to peter@pennandtylersgreen.com .
In the meantime, see the end of this blog for a report on the school’s rough and ready launch and some glorious photos of the school’s history.
Local news
Village pond clear-up – There will be a major clean-up of Widmer Pond on the common this month in an attempt to improve its health. The first of a series of regular reed clearing will take place and consideration is being given to more regular operations to transfer the number of fish into the River Wye. The two parish councils responsible for the maintenance of the pond have agreed to consider placing a measuring stick in the pond so water levels can be noted more quickly and accurately. Hundreds of fish died from lack of oxygen last summer when levels fell too low in the hot weather.
Shop returns – Nearly a year after the only grocery store in the Penn boundary closed, a new shop opened in its place last month. The shop, in School Road, was granted a licence to sell alcohol and is open from 6am to 10pm Monday to Saturday and from 7am to 9.30pm on Sundays. Although the shop is independently owned, it is trading under the Premier brand, part of a wholesale supply company owned by Tesco.
Penn events – The Oh Shala wellness festival is returning to the Big Park in the Penn House estate, Penn Street for a second year in July. For more details see this link: https://www.ohshalafestival.com The Bucks Country Show is also set to return during the bank holiday weekend of 4 and 5 May. Details on https://www.buckscountryshow.co.uk
AI survey – In a survey at Tylers Green Middle School two-thirds of parents said they did not believe their children were using artificial intelligence on their computers and a third thought their child’s use of AI was occasional rather than regular. The school is using the data to access how rapidly it needs to address AI education into its computer curriculum and in the meantime is providing training for staff and governors.
Distressing wait – The Government is to look into a case involving a family in the Penn area who have been waiting for over a year for a court hearing to resolve a domestic dispute. Penn’s MP Sarah Green told the House of Commons that the backlog in family court proceedings was causing “real distress”, adding “a year is a long time for a child, and we know that others are waiting even longer.” Junior Justice Minister Alex Davies-Jones told Ms Green she would look into the specific case.
Padel courts – Consideration is being given on whether to seek permission to add padel courts to the facilities at Penn and Tylers Green Sports and Social Club.
Community allotment – An application to create a community allotment plot on the Ashley Drive allotment site has been submitted and is likely to be considered in the autumn.
Charity boost – The Penn and Tylers Green Scout Christmas card delivery service in the village raised £936 for their chosen charity, Emmett’s Genies, which provides treats for children with life-limiting conditions.
House fire – Bucks Fire Brigade said it had to send six crews to tackle a blaze in an annex of a house in Manor Road last month but did not give further details.
Holocaust trip – Two year 12 pupils from Sir William Ramsay School are visiting Auschwitz this month on a trip organised by the Holocaust Education Trust. On return the pupils will talk about their visit with fellow students.
Early spuds – Following the success of the heaviest potato competition at last year’s Penn and Tylers Green Village Show the competition is back as a family class for this year’s June show. Details of that and other info about the show on www.pennandtylersgreenvillageshow.com
81k not out – Tylers Green charity campaigner Ron Hedley has so far raised £81,000 for Prostate Cancer UK with a series of sponsored walks at cricket and football clubs. His walks are held in conjunction with the Bob Willis Fund and further walks are planned this year to coincide with county matches at Essex, Gloucestershire, Middlesex, Surrey and Warwickshire cricket clubs. He’s pictured, fourth from the left, with supporters outside the Eric Morecambe Centre at a walk supported by Luton Football Club.
Alan Jones, a model of quiet, determined professionalism
ALAN JONES, the head teacher who fought successfully to prevent Penn School for disadvantaged children from closing, died last month, a year after his wife Judy.
Penn School, which catered for deaf and severely autistic children, did eventually close ten years ago, 15 years after Alan retired as its head. But in the 1990s Alan and his supporters fought a long campaign to stop the school being closed by its owners, Camden Council.
Eventually, after a campaign which ended up in the House of Commons, the battle was won…but not, in the long term, the war.
Alan’s genial and calming manner made him a formidable campaigner but he was a gentle and charming man, basing all the difficult professional decisions he had to make on his Christian belief. Both he and Judy were very active in church and social life here in Penn and Tylers Green and later in Penn Street.
Brenda Enticknap, the compassionate nurse who helped launch Village Care
THE DEATH has also occurred of Brenda Enticknap who, as Penn’s health visitor, was involved in the launch of Penn and Tylers Green Village Care, the charity which assists those in need of help to get out and about. She died at her home in Swanage aged 92.
Brenda worked as a bilingual secretary at the World Health Organisation in Geneva but realised that her heart really lay in nursing. She worked as a nurse in London hospitals and then as a sister at a psychiatric day hospital before training as a health visitor.
She was attached to Penn Surgery in 1983 and retired 13 years later. In that time she helped launch the Mother and Toddler Group and the Monday Club for the elderly in the village. But perhaps her greatest achievement was when she realised so many people with mobility problems were stuck at home and having difficulty making medical appointments or doing the shopping.
So in 1985 she instigated the launch of Village Care with the help of equally compassionate local residents. It is still thriving today. She didn’t settle for a quiet retirement. In Swanage she did voluntary work for the NSPCC, taught French and Italian language groups and played clarinet in the town band.
(Thanks to Heather Wicks for information supplied for this item.)
Nearly two thirds of local crime cases either dropped or unsolved by police
A BREAKDOWN of crime statistics in the Penn and Tylers Green area for last year shows that prosecutions couldn’t go ahead in nearly a third of cases because of a lack of evidence against a suspect. Additionally, nearly a third of cases were dropped because no suspect was identified.
The stats cover the Chepping Wye police area, which covers Tylers Green, Hazlemere, Loudwater and Flackwell Heath; and the Chalfonts police area which includes Penn, Penn Street, Chalfont St Giles and Chalfont St Peter.
Top of the reported crime list by a long way were allegations of violence and sex offences. This is a wide-ranging category that includes domestic disputes and types of aggression ranging from a minor assault, like pushing, to serious assaults like GBH and rape or non-consensual sex acts.
The second most reported crime was anti-social behaviour; the third general theft (excluding burglary and shop-lifting) and the fourth vehicle crime.
Criminal damage was fifth, public order offences sixth, shoplifting seventh, drug offences eighth and burglary ninth.
In the Chepping Wye region 838 crimes were reported to police between January and November last year and 958 in the Chalfonts region.
These figures show this area remains one of the safest areas for crime in the Thames Valley Police region and the figures, per population, are below the national averages.
The figures are compiled by the Home Office and obviously do not include crimes that are not reported to the police.
Taylor Wimpey offers more than £20 million to offset impacts of Gomm Valley development
HOUSE BUILDER Taylor Wimpey has offered more than £20million to Buckinghamshire Council in an attempt to mitigate the impacts of the 544 houses and other facilities it has been given permission to build in the Gomm Valley, between Hammersley Lane and Cock Lane, Tylers Green (see last blog).
The money – £21.4million in total – has been offered as part of what’s called a Section 106 agreement – a legal obligation where developers have to compensate local authorities for negative impacts – and a Community Infrastructure Levy, contributions sought by the council to support new infrastructure required because of the development.
The company’s offer includes:
- Just over £3million for junction and other traffic alterations on the A40 designed to improve the flow of traffic
- Over £5.5million towards the cost of building a new primary school
- A contribution towards the cost of providing “affordable” homes and improving the remaining open space in the valley
- A contribution to the health authority for expansion of Penn Surgery and Lynton House Surgery, the two nearest GP practices.
Discussions between Taylor Wimpey and the council are continuing this month.
*Taylor Wimpey said last month it expected an operating profit of £420 million from 2025, a figure not far off Buckinghamshire Council’s total budget of £577 million.
Royal exhibition for Penn’s famous princesses
AN EXHIBITION featuring the lives of two remarkable women who had a long association with Penn opens at Kensington Palace next month.
The ‘Last Princesses of Punjab’ tells the story of Princesses Sophia and Catherine Duleep Singh, two pioneering suffragettes who lived in Hammersley Lane, Tylers Green in the 1940s. They fought tirelessly against Nazism and cared for Jewish refugees at Hilden Hall in Hammersley Lane (see last July blog).
The exhibition – created to celebrate Sophia’s 150th birthday – also features the lives of three other women associated with the princesses who lead equally extraordinary lives. For details and tickets see this link https://www.hrp.org.uk/kensington-palace/whats-on/the-last-princesses-of-punjab/
The exhibition opens on 26 March and ends on 8 November.
Ashwells climbdown: council buckles after developers play hardball
SECRET negotiations between the developers of the Ashwells housing site off Cock Lane in Tylers Green and Buckinghamshire Council has resulted in the council taking a financial hit in order to let the scheme go ahead.
In a report council officers say that if the council did not agree to changing the contract it has with the developers, the Hill Group, there was every chance the company would have walked away from the contract.
That would have resulted in the council, who own the land, having to start from scratch in seeing the land developed. It has already taken the council seven years to get to this stage.
The plan to build 109 homes has been dogged and delayed by complex negotiations from the start, not helped by the discovery that a new access road would cross a high pressure gas main and cost thousands to overcome.
The sticking point this time has been on the cost of providing affordable housing.
The council was always insistent that 33 of the 109 homes for which it gave planning permission should fall under the “affordable” homes category, either by a shared ownership scheme or a discount market value scheme.
The difference is that shared ownership enables first time buyers to buy a percentage of the property, which could be as low as 10 per cent, and then pay a rent to the developers on the remaining share.
A discount market value scheme means first time buyers purchase the property at up to 50 per cent below market value but when they sell they must maintain the same percentage discount.
Last year the Hill Group told the council it wanted to drop the shared ownership part of the deal claiming “market conditions” no longer made it worthwhile for them. It only wanted to proceed if the 33 “affordable” homes were sold under the discount scheme.
The problem for the council was that if that happened it would not get as much money for the land from the developers as originally expected. But last month council leader Steve Broadbent signed off an amended contract which enabled the Hill Group to have its way.
True to form the council has kept the negotiations secret and won’t reveal exactly how much of a hit its council-tax payers are taking. All it says is that the it has taken the most prudent financial option available.
Providing there are no other last minute hitches – and never say never – building work on the site should begin this summer.
Lottery digs deep to help important local archeological site
THE NATIONAL Lottery has gifted nearly a quarter of a million pounds to enable the local community to get more involved in one of this area’s most important archeological digs.
For the past three summers students from Reading University and local volunteers, under guidance from professional archeologists, have been making some remarkable discoveries on the Cookham Abbey site by the Thames.
They’ve discovered that a monastery that’s been buried undisturbed since it was established 1,200 years ago was almost certainly one of Britain’s first hospices.
It was also the home of Queen Cynethryth, the wife of eighth century monarch King Offa, and an important trading centre for this region.
The Heritage Lottery grant will not only allow the dig to continue for three more years but enable the local charity, The Friends of Cookham Abbey, to prepare events and displays involving people in this area. Local schoolchildren have already been involved to some extent but now this can be greatly extended.
You can find out more on https://www.cookhamabbey.org.uk
Regional news
Smartphone curbs – After a meeting with 30 head teachers from schools in her constituency last month, Penn’s MP Sarah Green (Lib Dem, Chesham and Amersham) said the main feeling was that limitations of smartphone use amongst children were “definitely needed” to safeguard children and their learning.
Service station – A fresh attempt to build a motorway service station on the M25 between junctions 16 and 17 is being made. Two years ago Extra’s plan to build the station near Chalfont St Peter was turned down because the site is in Green Belt but Extra now feel it’s worth another go because the Government has relaxed planning rules.
Filibuster charge – Lord Goodman of Wycombe, the former Wycombe (and Tylers Green) MP, is one of a handful of peers accused of trying to “talk out” the Assisted Dying Bill by putting forward so many amendments the bill will run out of Parliamentary time. He proposes 59 amendments in the House of Lords. He wants five independent doctors to be involved in a decision to end someone’s life rather than the two proposed and that a geriatrician should be included in the decision-making process.
Oscar’s tribute – Reading Jail, where gay writer and playwright Oscar Wilde was imprisoned, is to be transformed into a hotel and “art space” by its new owners, the Ziran Educational Foundation. They say they want it to be “a refuge for artists worldwide who face persecution.”
Hospital improvements – Here’s how a new look reception area will look at Wexham Park Hospital following an upgrade this spring. The cafe run by the Royal Voluntary Service will cease and be replaced by a Costa and a Chaiiwala street-food cafe with a halal menu. A Co-op supermarket will be included, featuring a 24 hour smart shop.
*Parking at Wycombe Hospital will be more difficult for the rest of this year following the closure of one of its main car parks last month to enable the construction of a new medical block (see November blog). Visitors are advised to allow extra time. Meanwhile an upgrade of the Cancer Care and Haematology Unit at Stoke Mandeville Hospital was completed last month.
Horse accidents – Local MPs Joy Morrissey (Con. Beaconsfield) and Greg Smith (Con. Mid Bucks) have called for stronger measures to prevent road accidents involving horses on country roads. The British Horse Society said last year there were more than 3,000 road incidents involving horses and their riders, mainly caused by drivers passing horses too closely. Fifty eight horses were killed with 97 injured. Eighty riders were also injured.
New supermarket – The Food Supermarket, part of the Iceland group, is to open in the former Benson’s bed store in the Wycombe Retail Park off the A40 in Wycombe Marsh.
Centre closure – Slough’s Queensmere shopping centre closed last month and will be rebuilt as a 1600 home development. Most of the remaining shops in Queensmere moved to the town’s only other shopping complex, The Observatory.
Reverse ferrets – A second Buckinghamshire councillor has switched allegiance to a different party from which she was elected last May. Kathryn Gibbon became one of the council’s first Reform councillors when she won the Bierton, Kingsbrook and Wing seat. Last month she joined the Conservatives. Robin Stutchbury, who won a Buckingham seat for Labour last year switched to being an independent within two weeks of being elected.
Vent ready – Work on the Amersham ventilation shaft for the HS2 high speed railway on the Amersham to Hazlemere road, pictured above, has been completed and is ready to service the tunnel 36 metres below once the railway is operational. Meanwhile, also last month, HS2 completed the 10 mile (16 km) Chilterns Tunnel from Denham to Great Missenden although the rail line itself and electric gantries have yet to be installed. It’s taken nearly five years to complete.
Looking for Stickman – A children’s woodland walk, based on characters from Julia Donaldson’s stories, has opened at the Forestry Commission’s Wendover Woods.
Council tax – Buckinghamshire Council will increase council tax by 4.99 per cent this year – the highest figure permitted without holding a referendum.
Your round – Middleweight boxing champ Michael Watson, in white in the centre, joined Boney M tribute artist Freddie Lee, left, and Odyssey singer Steven Collazo for a get-together at The Lion of Beaconsfield pub in Knotty Green. They’re with landlady Jessie Birdseed Tsang.
Special report to mark village’s school’s 150th anniversary.
Frequent truancy, ‘backward’ children and earth closets as loos: the challenging birth of Tylers Green First School.
THE OPENING of Tylers Green School couldn’t come soon enough.
It had been six years since the Government had agreed an Education Act enabling children aged between five and 12 to receive an elementary education.
Although a Wycombe school board was quickly established after the Act, its members concentrated first on setting up schools in High Wycombe itself. Tylers Green, on the outskirts of the parish of Wycombe, had to wait.
Then, when the board did decide to move and a site on the edge of the common was identified, operations were delayed “for a considerable period” while undisclosed legal difficulties were ironed out.
While the problems were being sorted Earl Howe rented out one of his stable blocks in the village to act as a temporary school but with 106 children attending on a hit or miss basis it was hardly suitable.
Things were desperate because, like many Victorian villages, both Penn and Tylers Green had small populations that contained a high proportion of children.
The population of Penn and Tylers Green was 790. Astonishingly 308 of that number were aged under 13.
There was the added problem of the boundary between the two villages which ran, then as now, through the middle of Widmer Pond on the common.
Tylers Green was in the Wycombe school board area and some board members were a bit sniffy about letting Penn children attend. They fell under the Amersham school board area.
But Sir Philip Rose, who lived at Rayners in Tylers Green and was the lawyer and personal friend of the prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, used his influence.
When he laid the school foundation stone in 1875 he told the assembled crowd: “It would be desirable if all the children of this hamlet (both Penn and Tylers Green) receive the same advantages in education, and all be admitted to instruction in this building.”
As it turned out the Penn Church School, which had opened 20 years earlier in Tylers Cottage, the home of a Mrs Sutton and later established in what is now Penn Parish Rooms, flourished until the late 1940s when it closed for lack of pupils.
Tylers Green Board School, as it was originally called, was designed by Wycombe architect Arthur Vernon and built by a Maidenhead builder called Mr Woodbridge whose quote of £1,870 was accepted by the board.
It took nearly a year to build and comprised two large rooms. A school house was built adjacent (now part of the present school) for the headmaster John Hindley and a cinder playground was provided which also included a few earth closets as toilets.
The school opened on Monday 28 August without much fanfare. The Vicar of St Margaret’s, the Rev William Pengilly, came to give the school his blessing.
But not everyone – parents as well as children – was enamoured at the idea of going to school regularly.
Within a couple of weeks Mr Hindley wrote in the school logbook: “Most of the children who have been admitted lately are backward. The boys to be presented in grammar are seldom at school, consequently very little progress is made in that subject.”
The first school year saw similar log book entries…
April 1877 – “A small attendance this week. Many boys are assisting their parents in the garden.”
11 June – “There was a cricket match on the common this day. This reduced the attendance very much.”
6 July – “Thin school this week. Many boys away fruit picking.”
27 July – “Many children are away in consequence of harvest operations.”
There was no point in opening at all when Penn Fair arrived every September so the day was declared a school holiday.
When they were at school the children were often divided into classes according to their ability, not their age. So, for instance, if a child of six had the same reading ability as a child of nine and another aged 12 they would all be taught in the same group. The girls had a specific sewing mistress.
The School Inspector visited a few weeks after its opening and reported: “The school promises to be a great success in the new and excellent buildings. Since it opened many large numbers have been admitted, so that next year I hope to find many more candidates for examination.”
The following year he reported that 50 per cent of the children had obtained their elementary education certificate. The year after that the figure was 90 per cent.
For 150 years the school, like all schools, has had its ups and downs; significant challenges and brilliant successes. But through it all it has been an essential part of the Penn and Tylers Green community. It remains so today.
*This item has been compiled thanks to Liz Tebbutt’s book A History of Tylers Green First School and the news archive of the Bucks Free Press newspaper.
PICTURE SPECIAL
The pictures come courtesy of Chepping Wycombe Parish Council unless otherwise stated.
There’s been a teddy bear guarding the school from the bell tower for as long as anyone can remember.
No-one we’ve met has any idea how it all started, so if you know please let us know.
The bell tower was important when the school was first built and clocks and watches were virtually unknown. The bell would be rung – and heard throughout the entire area – ten minutes before school began and finish five minutes before starting time. Some children turned getting to school with seconds to spare into a fine art…but woe betide them if they were late!
Don’t forget to let us know of any fond – or not so fond – memories you have of our village school, to be published throughout its 150th anniversary year.
You can contact this blog at peter@pennandtylersgreen.com. It will be updated as necessary in February but next fully updated on 1 March.