A Brief History of Bohemia – part 3 – Churches & Schools

Posted by admin on 26/1/10 • Categorised as History, No. 56 Feb 2008

St Peters Church standing at the corner of St Peters Road and Chapel Park Road [photo kindly loaned by Don Ray]

By Edward Preston (Feb 2008)

To address the spiritual needs of this growing community, a Primitive Methodist chapel had already opened in Newgate Road with 100 sittings, indicating that Upper Bohemia was already well established, even in the 1870s.

Then came the Wesleyan Church in Park Road in 1881, enlarged in 1891. However, the Church of England was also conscious of this developing area, and St Peter’s Church was built in 1885. The second vicar, Rev. W. C. Streatfeild [spelling is correct – ed.], served there from 1902-1911. One of his daughters, Noel, became the famous children’s authoress, her best-known book being Ballet Shoes. In her autobiographical story, A Vicarage Family, she describes life at the vicarage – a far cry from today’s way of life.

Bohemia was well served with schools. At the foot of St Paul’s Road where today we see the Y.M.C.A. building, stood the St Paul’s schools, comprising Boys’, Girls’, Infants’ and the St Paul’s Crèche or Infant Nursery. These were National Schools, i.e. supported by the Church of England. The old school buildings were demolished in May 1967, upon the removal of the school to its present site at the top of Horntye Road. Secondary education was provided at the Tower Road school – the site now occupied by the modern Christchurch Primary School.