School Buildings
The school's buildings vary in age and quality:
- The 'White House', built around 1870 by Cubitt, is the school's oldest building. Grade II listed, it houses the school's reception, main offices, a small chapel and a medical centre.
- The Bourne Block, completed in 1936, is the largest building and houses most of the classrooms, as well as the Sixth Form common room and a newly-built business centre.
- The Challoner Block, completed in 1954, originally housed the separate Challoner School, until it became part of FCHS in 1971. It contains the second largest number of classrooms.
- Bampfield House, a private residence built before 1920, was acquired in the early 1950s as a dormitory block for the Challoner School. FCHS used it as a music and drama centre until the construction of the Performing Arts Centre (see below).
- The School Hall, built in 1956 and originally used solely as a chapel, now functions as an assembly hall.
- The Stephenson Block, (named after the late chemistry teacher, "Mo" Stephenson), also known as the '1971 Block', houses the ICT and art rooms, a small library and the recently-renovated cafeteria.
- The Performing Arts Centre, built in 2004 and opened by local girl Emma Bunton ("Baby Spice"), replaced Bampfield House as a multi-purpose music and drama centre, including three music rooms and a drama studio. It also houses a seminar room for conferences.
There are two other buildings of note.
- Challoner Lodge, built around 1930 as a house for the founder's aged widowed mother, is now the school keeper's residence.
- Parsons Lodge, originally the coachman's lodge for the 'White House' and also Grade II listed, was recently converted into two private flats.
- There is another structure, which could be mistaken for a neglected gatehouse, but is in fact the school's very own electricity substation (strictly out of bounds!).
Read more about this topic: Finchley Catholic High School
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—Ivan Illich (b. 1926)
“The American who has been confined, in his own country, to the sight of buildings designed after foreign models, is surprised on entering York Minster or St. Peter’s at Rome, by the feeling that these structures are imitations also,—faint copies of an invisible archetype.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)