Celebrating 90 Years At St James' - Biography Of Our School - Part Four
The history of St. James’ is multilayered. A history that has to be told in the context of place, time and location.
From 1934 to 1997 St. James’ occupied the site of Orange Hill House at the top of Orange Hill Road(on the left-hand side) just before the roundabout at the junction with Deansbrook Road . This was the original and main site of St. James’ for sixty- three years. The School and the Covent occupied part, but only part, of the extensive grounds of Orange Hill House. The House was originally purchased by the LCC(London County Council), as I understand , to be used as offices presumably to administer the new Watling Estate. The LCC , in the eventuality, did not need Orange Hill House and it was sold to the Dominican Sisters who needed a place for them to dwell. The cost of the House and grounds was five thousand pounds for which the Sisters took out a bank loan. Orange Hill House was renamed St. Rose’s Convent after St. Rose of Lima , Peru, a Dominican saint(1586-1617). Initially, as well as housing the Sisters, the Convent also accommodated a small private school known as St. Rose’s which afforded the Sisters an income until the Annunciation School was opened. The school later, post 1934, merged with St. James’. St. James’ was built in the grounds of Orange Hill House where the orchard and green houses were sited. One of the pupils, a Miss Halfpenny, of St. Rose’s school who joined St. James, later became a teacher at St James’.
Orange Hill House was built in 1881 by a William Ruddock(a merchant from Ludlow, Shropshire) for William and his family. This house was not the first to occupy the site. Today the house has been converted into luxury flats and where St. James’ was is now housing. The family occupied the house for about thirty years. The Ruddock family then rented the house . Serendipitously. St.James’ Burnt Oak and St. James’ Colindale are linked in the person one of its tenants, namely Claude Grahame-White, a world-famous pioneer aviator(now sadly forgotten, lost to memory) who built the Hendon Aerodrome . Grahame-White occupied the house for three years . The house was conveniently located for him to commute to the Hendon Aerodrome which he founded and from which the first airmail and passenger flights flew. Grahame- White was a well-known society figure of his day and many a celebrity was entertained and stayed at the house e.g. Enrico Caruso and Dame Nelly Melba among others, one of the attractions being a spin in the new mode of transport, an aircraft. St. James’ Colindale occupies sixteen and a half acres of what was once Grahame-White’s Aerodrome, later RAF Hendon. Grahame Park is named, in way of tribute, after Claude . Thus, St. James’ has been located , to serve, two new housing developments , firstly the Watling Estate and latterly Grahame Park now absorbed into greater Colindale.
