Plans to convert the University of Greenwich’s old Mansion site at Avery Hill into a school look set to be scrapped – throwing plans to refurbish one of southeast London’s hidden gems into uncertainty.
The historic mansion and adjoining buildings next to Avery Hill Park in Eltham, once used as a teacher training college, was due to be refurbished and turned into a 1,150-pupil boys’ school for the Harris Federation academy chain.
When planning permission was granted in October 2020, funds from the sale of the buildings were to be used by the university to refurbish the long-neglected Winter Garden, the second largest Victorian glasshouse after Kew Gardens.
The site was fenced off the following year – inconveniencing people trying to access Avery Hill Park – with plans to open up in September 2022. But little work actually took place and the date was continually postponed amid indications that the government had got cold feet about the scheme.
The protracted collapse of the school project will be met with relief from residents, who feared disruption from a second large school in their neighbourhood next to Leigh Stationers’ Academy, which was known as Crown Woods until last year.
After a year-long review, Harris Academy Avery Hill is on a list of 46 schools that the government is “minded to cancel”, with the cash going into provision for children with special educational needs instead. Harris and Greenwich Council can appeal against the decision, which was announced last week.
The Winter Garden remains open to the public, with free admission seven days a week, and its plants are still looked after. But the building is clearly in poor repair, with one wing closed to the public.
The mansion dates back to Victorian times, with the Winter Garden built for its owner, the entrepreneur John Thomas North. But North only lived in the rebuilt mansion for five years before he died in 1896.
Six years later the mansion, Winter Garden and parkland were taken into public hands by the London County Council. The mansion and Winter Garden became a teacher training college – ultimately becoming part of the university – while the rest became Avery Hill Park, which was taken over by Greenwich Council in the 1980s.
John Webb, who has been campaigning for the Winter Gardens’ restoration as the chair of the Friends of Avery Hill Park, said it had been “obvious for at least five years” that the school would not be built and that the mansion’s delicate interior meant it was not a suitable location.
But he said the collapse of the plan meant the council had “a second chance to get this right, to make the Winter Garden a proper jewel in the crown of the borough”.
“This gives a chance to look at all the options for maximising the use of the site for the public good, hand in hand with a full restoration and sustainable future for the Winter Garden together with the historic parts of the Victorian mansion,” Webb said.
Charlie Davis, a Conservative councillor for Eltham Town & Avery Hill, told The Greenwich Wire: “There was no need for this decision to be dragged out across multiple years, extending uncertainty and delaying the safeguarding of this historic site.
“Any future use must ensure the protection and enhancement of the Winter Garden and wider mansion site, and any prospective partner that is willing to do that should be listened to seriously.”
Greenwich Council said it welcomed the diversion of cash into funding for special educational needs, but did not respond to a question about the future of the Winter Garden.
“Based on the need for school places, which is currently sufficient, the council would not be appealing the decision to cancel Harris boys’ school in Avery Hill,” a spokesperson said.
Harris Federation did not respond to an enquiry from The Greenwich Wire while the University of Greenwich declined to comment.
School rolls have fallen since the pandemic, with two primary schools in the borough – Holy Family in Kidbrooke and Gallions Mount in Plumstead – closing down.
But even before Covid there were questions about school capacity: in 2019 another free school, the International Academy of Greenwich, which was based in an office block, was closed by the government after it failed to win permission to build on a sports ground in Lee.
Both Greenwich and Lewisham councils had said there was no need for the new school. Greenwich had based its predictions on an assumption that the Harris Avery Hill academy would open in 2022.
Greenwich Council response added at 2.20pm.
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