The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

This summer Hampstead Parochial School will celebrate 150 years of being on the site in Holly Bush Vale (although, of course, the school started a lot earlier than that). The school and governors will be celebrating this historic anniversary in a variety of ways towards the end of the summer term, including a service in church on 4 July at 2pm at which the Bishop of London will preach. We will give you more details of other events nearer the time.

The reason for drawing this to your attention now, however, is to seek your help in several ways. First, we would like to publicise this event as widely as possible in the community and, particularly, to previous pupils of the school, and would be grateful for any names and addresses you may have. Second, we are seeking volunteers from amongst older members of the congregation who are willing to be interviewed for a “living history” project it isn’t necessary to have lived through all the 150 years to make a valid contribution! Third, we would like some help with looking through all the church’s old photographs to find anything interesting in them about Hampstead, the school, the church or key people over the period.

Are you able to help us? We would be grateful for any offers of help, or simply to discuss with you ideas for marking this anniversary of 150 years of collaboration between the church and the school. This is an opportunity to be proud of what we have achieved together, and to remind the world outside of the continuing relevance of the church’s work in the present generation.