St Quintin Park - a history and stories

Table of Contents

1. St Quintin Park - history and stories
   1. Early History
2. Schooldays
   1. Oxford Gardens School 1905 to 1913
   2. Coronation at Oxford Gardens 1953
   3. OXFORD GARDENS PRE-SCHOOL NURSERY CLASS
   4. St Helen's School
   5. St Charles RC Primary School
   6. North Kensington Central School (St Mark's)
3. Around the Streets
   1. The St Quintin Estate
   2. St Helen's Gardens
   3. Kelfield - The Lancaster Road Wesleyan Church War Memorial Athletic Club
   4. Evelyn Fox Court, Kingsbridge Road
   5. LATIMER ROAD
   6. Saved from the Motorway
   7. Motorway Disruption
   8. Pangbourne Avenue, W10
4. New Housing for Overcrowded North Kensington
   1. William Sutton St Quintin Park Estate
   2. THE PEABODY BUILDINGS, DALGARNO GARDENS
   3. Princess Alice House
   4. THE COMMUNITY CENTRE NURSERY SCHOOL
5. Spiritual Needs
   1. My Church, St PIUS the X
   2. The Carmelite Convent.
   3. St Helen's Church
   4. Bethany Hall, Barlby Road
6. Wartime Memories
   1. Audrey Jones - War Time Memories
7. Keeping Healthy -Hospitals and Parks
   1. St Charles Hospital
   2. Princess Louise Hospital
   3. The Little Wormwood Scrubs.
   4. "CANAC"The Canalside Activity Centre

Coronation at Oxford Gardens 1953

There was great excitement at Oxford Gardens School as we prepared for the Coronation.

In my class it was decided that we should make a fabric panel to portray the most important people taking part in the ceremony. " My " person was the Duke of Norfolk. He would be wearing a velvet robe, in purple, a colour which I thought quite marvellous. My teacher, Miss Tongs, gave me a piece of wide purple velvet ribbon to work with and I can remember holding it and stroking it, almost reverentially. Touching velvet even now still conjures up the same glorious feeling.

We also learned all about the Coronation ceremony, the regalia, its traditions and symbolism, and who would do what and when, and who to look for and so on.

On the day of the Coronation itself I was invited to our next door neighbours to watch their television as we did not have our own. We all sat glued to the - really tiny - screen and then I was invited to stay to lunch. I remember eating cold cooked cauliflower very, very slowly.

At School we had a fancy dress party, our outfits depending on begging, borrowing , raiding dressing-up boxes and our mothers' sewing abilities. At the end of the party we each received a small commemorative glass mug, which still sits at the back of a cupboard after all this time.

We were also included in the nationwide Coronation celebrations.

The whole school - and presumably other local schools too - was taken to help line the route of the royal tour of London.

We were taken to a spot near St. Helen's Church, although I suppose the Church wasn't there then, and we stood near the junction of St. Quintin Avenue and St. Helen's Gardens. We then waited ages and ages and ages, or so it seemed at the time.

Eventually, at a given signal, we all began to cheer, and a large car flashed by. It presumably held the Royals but I don't actually remember seeing them, perhaps I blinked!

My memory is of a very long wait, a deflated sense of occasion and the rear view of an extremely large, black car, a far cry from all the pomp, glitter and ceremony experienced at the Royalty Cinema in Lancaster Road, and certainly not that much fun when you are under ten years old.