Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School
Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School
We were commissioned by the trustees of Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School in Hertfordshire to provide heritage advice on a major redevelopment of the school grounds. We supported the proposed scheme through pre-application consultation and to planning, producing various heritage assessment reports and contributing to an Environmental Statement.
The School is based at Grade II* listed Aldenham House, which dates from the late seventeenth century with eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century additions, and is set in a Grade II registered park and garden. During the Second World War the house and grounds were occupied by the BBC Foreign Service, who built a reinforced concrete extension to the house, to accommodate recording studios and offices. In the 1960s it was bought by the School, who built a series of large buildings in the vicinity of the house.
The proposed scheme by NVP Architects involved the demolition of the 1940s BBC extension and construction of three new teaching buildings, as well as the restoration of the house. After pre-application consultation with Historic England, we undertook further research on the extension, to better understand its role in the BBC’s wartime activity. Having found that it was of limited significance, the scheme went to planning and was approved.
Client: Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School