Ancestry UK

St Monica's Home For Girls, Ashbourne, Derbyshire

The Waifs and Strays Society opened its St Monica's Home For Girls in 1911 at 37-39 Windmill Lane, Ashbourne. The property had been given to the Society by Mr and Mrs Peveril Turnbull in memory of their daughters, Monica and Dorothea, who had died in a fire at their home, Sandybrook Hall, Ashbourne. The official opening and dedication of St Monica's was performed by the Dean of Lichfield on August 9th, 1911.

St Monica's Home For Girls, Ashbourne, c.1911. © Peter Higginbotham

St Monica's Home For Girls, Ashbourne, c.1911. © Peter Higginbotham

Former St Monica's Home For Girls, Ashbourne, 2013. © Peter Higginbotham

The home could accommodate 30 girls aged from 5 upwards, with six places allocated to older girls who received training in cookery, laundry work and housework. As well as enabling them to contribute to the household work of the home, the skills they acquired would make them more employable in later life.

St Monica's Home For Girls - hoops and croquet, Ashbourne, c.1912.

St Monica's Home For Girls, Ashbourne, c.1925. © Peter Higginbotham

Mr and Mrs Turnbull remained closely involved with the home, its children providing a substitute for the daughters they had lost. After Mr Turnbull's death in 1926, Mrs Turnbull maintained her association with the home. In 1931, she took the girls on a seaside holiday to Southport. When the Second World War began in September 1939, she moved the girls into her home at Sandybrook Hall so that children from the Audenshaw home could be evacuated to St Monica's.

St Monica's Home For Girls, Ashbourne, c.1931. © Peter Higginbotham

In around 1947, the home started to provide specialised care for children with physical disabilities. In the early 1970s, it was focusing on children with educational difficulties but by 1976 was again housing physically disabled youngsters in the 12 to 16 age range.

The home finally closed in 1986. From then until 2003, the property was occupied by the Ashbourne PNEU (Parents' National Education Union) School. It now hosts a local business centre.

Former St Monica's Home For Girls, Ashbourne, 2013. © Peter Higginbotham

Records

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Bibliography