Mayfield School

Two pines on Mayfield Reserve mark where the first school in the community stood. The school opened in 1891 with 38 children aged 5-15. One of the first pupils, Billy Edmonds, remembers:

I commenced school in 1893, when Charles Clark was teacher. Although he was quite a young man Mr Clark had a luxuriant beard, and taught with a round smoking cap on his head and a four-foot rod of bamboo rarely out of his hand. When the boys wouldn’t bend over, he held their heads between his knees while he whacked the seat of their pants.

Some years later, the schoolchildren saw their first motorcar. Another pupil, Charlie Chandler, recalls:

It was playtime and we heard a strange noise approaching. We all ran to the roadside to wonder at the thing bumping and bouncing over the rough track, at the great speed of 10 miles per hour. To our minds, it was a most awesome sight as there was no horse pulling it.

This cone-shaped tree in the stand of trees beyond the Telephone Exchange at the corner of Mayfield and Glenfield Road is one of the kauri planted by pupils on 12 May 1937 to celebrate the coronation of King George VI. This tree, and the concrete path leading up to the two pines on the reserve, are all that remain to remind us that here, for 76 years, a school, church, hall, and social centre served a geographically scattered, but close-knit community. In May 1965, a ceremony marked the school’s closure. It was demolished in 1967.

Continue north to the end of Mayfield Road.