Tour led by local architect Richard Woolf

Meet at the school gates on Petersham Road, opposite the Fox and Duck public house and behind the bus stop.

Tour synopsis: This year's annual Ham United Group architecture tour takes education as its theme. Schools are the most prominent civic buildings in Ham and Petersham and at the heart of the community. They are symbols of a society’s values, a humanising environment of learning and living. The architecture of schools has changed radically over the generations and, with thanks to the Head of The Russell School, we will be taking a tour of an education facility designed for the twenty-first century.

Completed in 2018 when the image accompanying this synopsis was taken prior to the building works concluding, these new facilities replaced a collection of 1950s buildings, themselves a post-war response to the destruction of the original Victorian school which was located just within the Petersham Gates of Richmond Park.

Richard Woolf Mst ( Cantab ) RIBA is a local architect and building historian with an interest in the constructed environment and how what we build reflects the values and ambitions of past, current and future generations. He has provided tours and lectures on the architectural heritage of Ham and Petersham over many years.