A Decade on at Maresfield Gardens

This week, we mark the 10th anniversary of the formal opening of our new Senior School building.

The seven-storey building, designed by Hopkins Architects, took many years of planning to come to fruition, with the guidance and patience of the Girls’ Day School Trust (GDST), the then Chair of Governors, John Rosefield, and Headmistress, Mrs Jenny Stephens. The GDST invested over £30 million in an ambitious project to replace the original Victorian school with a new light-filled space to accommodate the expanding community.  Whilst the building works were underway, Senior School pupils and staff relocated to temporary buildings at the sports ground. Science lessons continued at labs on Maresfield Gardens and lunches were still cooked on site, before being transported to the portakabins overlooking the cricket pitch each day!

South Hampstead High School was founded in 1876 but didn’t move to Maresfield Gardens until 1882, when growing pupil numbers necessitated larger premises. Whilst the original footprint of the site remained largely unchanged during the renovations, it was excavated to create a subterranean, double-height sports hall below a new, outdoor multi-use games area (MUGA), as well as dozens of purpose-built classrooms and state-of-art design studios, topped with a roof garden with views over the city. The Senior School community returned to the new building on Maresfield Gardens in September 2014; it was officially opened with much excitement by alumna Helena Bonham Carter in January 2015.

Over the past decade, the building has been improved and adapted with the addition of a spectacular Waterlow Hall performance space, a codeLab, a multi-faith prayer room, and a verdant, seventh floor garden oasis to ensure it continues to provide a home for our whole school community to learn and thrive in the 21st century.