Merion Square School
The main building housed the Merion Square School, a public school, until 1958, when students, teachers, school bell, and plaque were moved to the new Gladwyne School on the other side of the playground. We bought the property in 1968 and have modernized the building and expanded and improved the grounds several times. A timeline of what GMS has done with the building, which is a Class 1 Historic Property.
The historical records below come from the Gladwyne Library,
and the Lower
Merion Historical Society, which also made the old photographs available.
The first Merion Square School was built before 1835. In October 1835, the Lower Merion School Board appointed John Phillips as a teacher at $150 for the school term. Oral tradition says there was an earlier Merion Square School on Righters Mill Road c. 1830, but no documentation of this school is known. The 1851 Levering map shows the school on Youngsford Rd. (Reference)
The second Merion Square School building, our present school, was constructed by 1884, with additions in 1910, 1917, and 1929 on the site of the earlier school.
[the plaque that was on the front of the building is dated 1884. It was moved to the new Gladwyne School on the other side of the playground when the public school moved there in 1958, but has since been lost.]
Merion Square School (1930)
Since the consolidation of the township
schools Gladwyne has had a substantial stone building of six rooms, with
sanitary toilets, Springfield drinking water and electric lights.
In addition to the school playground, which was
enlarged in 1923 through the purchase of additional ground at a cost of
$4,792.53, the children are permitted to use the large athletic field directly
across the street, as it is owned and has been equipped with playground
apparatus by the township commissioners.
The first addition to this quaint and picturesque building was
erected at a cost of $11,196.94, while modern, sanitary toilet facilities were
installed in 1917 at a cost of $2,923.48. In 1926, a modern oil burning hot air
heating system was erected at a cost of $10,000.00. In 1929, the entire plant
was overhauled, and an addition containing two classrooms, offices, lockers,
showers, a cafeteria, and a fine gymnasium- auditorium was erected by the
Bowden Construction Company, Ralph E. White, of Philadelphia, being the
architect. The total cost of this addition, including enlargement of the heating
plant and other necessary changes, was $83,643.53.
Phone, Ardmore 194
from the Directory 1930-31 / Lower Merion Township / Montgomery County, Pa./ Public Schools p.42.
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