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The History of Boarding at Abbotsleigh
Abbotsleigh has always been a Boarding School. It was Miss Clarke’s stated aim that the "House girls” as boarders were then called should be given every home comfort. It was with a nucleus of “House girls” that she moved from Parramatta to the new purpose built school at Wahroonga in 1888.
The first extension to Boarding facilities came in 1913 with the purchase of Wollumbin just across the Pacific Highway where the overpass now lands. From time to time girls also lodged next door to Wollumbin in Terranora. When the school was bought by the Anglican Church in 1924 the School Council thought it unacceptable that girls should cross the highway at night and so purchased the Mander Jones’ house next door. They named it Murray House. Wollumbin was then sold. Since then, property has been bought and converted to boarding facilities as the demand has grown.
The only time we have closed boarding houses was in the Depression when the numbers shrank quite severely and all the boarders were accommodated with the Headmistress in Read House. In 1990 we opened a new purpose built boarding house named for Miss McCredie to replace “School House” as the boarding wing of the old main building was called. At this time the other boarding houses were also refurbished and their facilities upgraded in an ongoing endeavour to provide “every home comfort”
Dates of Acquisition of Boarding Houses
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| Wollumbin |
1913 sold 1924
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| (Old) Murray |
1924 Demolished in 1963 to make room for the Chapel |
| Vindin |
1931 |
| Read |
1933 |
| Poole House |
1954 Used for Junior School Boarders and Year 7 until Junior Boarding was phased out in the 1980s. Refurbished for administrative and academic use in 1991 |
| Lynton |
1969 |
| (New) Murray |
1962 |
| Hirst Cottage |
12 and 10 Lucinda Avenue, 1980 and 1985 |
| McCredie |
1990 |
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