Swanley Heritage No 7 - Early Education Establishments around Swanley Update 2 - 1 December 2011

Although the early educational developments took place in Swanley, Hextable or Swanley Village they are relevant ot the heritage of Swanley.

Swanley Horticultural College 
Hextable House -The college was started in 1989 in Hextable House. Originally it was a women's college and took many female students who later served horticulture in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the world. The property was bombed during World War 2 and ceased there in 1944.

Northbank - A branch of the horticultural college was housed at Northbank from 1902 to 1916 - to educate women horticulturists going to the colonies. After the college premises in Hextable House were bombed studies were continued in College Road.  

Students: 
Lilian Gibbs (1870 - 1925) was astudent at Swanley Horticultural College who subsequently studied botany and travelled the world as a plant collector. She visited Africa, Australia, Borneo, Fiji, and New Zealand Does any one have the bamboo Bambusa gibbsiae.


Dame Sylvia Crowe (1901 to 1997) was a student fom 1920 -1922 becoming a landscape gardener and President of the Institute of Landscape Architects.
http://www.landscapeinstitute.org/PDF/Contribute/SylviaCrowepreface.pdf

Kent Careers College
When horticulture ended in Hextable the Kent County Council formed the Kent Careers College in College Road.

Home for Little Boys:
As a boy Christopher P Casstine, an orphan, stayed at Homes for Little Boys in Hextable. The 19th century buildings were the home of numerous boys and later on girls as well.

Furnness School:
Furness School was originally the Home for Little Boys. It later became co-educational.

St Davids School;
Uplands the home of Arthur Mee was bought in 1915 and made into a school by Miss Jessie Hogbin - the school use was originally opened in another house on St David's Day in 1910 where it had been called "St David's". The name was retained and Uplands became St David's. (From 1905 Arthur Mee had created the Children's Encyclopedia in Uplands.)

Parkwood Hall School
Parkwood School was originally a hospital but became the London County Council's Junior Firemen's College and later became Parkwood Hall School (Royal London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea) and remains so now.
[See http://webfronter.com/rbkc/phs/menu/mnu1.shtml ]

White Oak Schools
These senior and junior schools are no longer  schools but part of the community centre Woodlands. As schools they are believed to have been created to educate the poor London children who were patients at White Oak Hospital. The children arrived for treatment suffering from infectious diseases, eg eyes, head and skin.