Tower Road Schools, St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings

<p>For minutes of the Hastings and St Leonards School Board, 1871-1903 see R/E 4/1/28-33; for minutes of the governing body, 1875-1898 and 1899-1939 see E/MA/157/1-5 and for 1898-1899 see E/MA/158/1; for title deeds of the school site, 1866-1894 see R/C 4/190; for plans, 1867-1903 see R/E 4/1/130, 142, 144-145, 156; for plans of a proposed pupils teachers' centre at Tower Road, 1904 see R/E 4/24/2-3</p>

Records transferred 30 Apr 1993 (ACC 6089)

This school was originally known as St Leonards British and Infants' Schools and opened on 30 November 1868 in premises in London Road. The entrance to the girls' and infants' schools was in Gensing Station Road. A school board for Hastings and St Leonards was formed on 17 February 1871 and the school subsequently became the London Road Board School. It was replaced by a new school called Tower Road Board School, which opened for boys, girls and infants in May 1896. The site had been purchased by the Hastings School Board in 1894 from the Trustees of the Magdalen Charity

In 1903 the school came under the control of the Education Committee of the Borough of Hastings. The first meeting of the managers appointed under the 1902 Education Act was held on 12 Jun 1903. The school was disrupted by evacuees from London during 1939 and 1940 until the London County Council children were re-evacuated in June 1940. The last log book ends with arrangements for the evacuation of all children from Hastings in July 1940. There are no entries for the school in the Sussex Directories after 1939

The site of the school and the adjacent Technical School were in use by St Leonards Secondary Modern School for Boys and Girls by 1948. By 1958 the Directories record the school as Woodlands Secondary School for Girls and by 1974 as the (mixed) Grove Secondary School