I found this little memorial plaque to two sons lost in the Great War above a window looking out onto children playing. It was strangely moving and I thought what a wonderful place to stand and remember.

The plaque reads:

To The Happy Memory of Harold Vyvyan and Vere Harmsworth
Sons of Viscount Rothermere
who gave their lives for us in the Great War 1914-1918

These laid the world away, poured out the red sweet wine of youth gave up the years to be of work and joy

Quote from The Dead by Rupert Brooke

Digging around on the Internet unearthed these brief biographies of the young men commemorated here:

Capt. Harold Alfred Vyvyan St. George Harmsworth, M.C. (b. Aug. 2 1894) and Lieut. Vere Sidney Tudor Harmsworth (b. Sept. 25 1895), both of whom, after showing exceptional promise in civil fields, served with extreme gallantry in battle and fell in the national cause. Harold, in the Irish Guards, was twice severely wounded in 1915, and was then given a staff appointment in England. This he insisted on resigning and returned to his battalion at the front. There in Bourlon Wood, on Nov. 27 1917, he received mortal wounds of which he died on Feb. 12 1918. In recording the grant of the M.C. for his conduct on that occasion the London Gazette stated:” He led his company forward under heavy fire and himself put out of action two enemy machine-guns. It was entirely due to his splendid example that his company reached their objective.”In his memory [his father], Lord Rothermere founded and endowed the Harold Vyvyan chair of American history at Oxford University in June 1920.

Vere, educated for the navy which he had to leave owing to gun-deafness, joined the Royal Naval Division immediately after the outbreak of war, took part in the expedition to Antwerp, and, when his battalion was driven across the frontier into Holland, made his escape from Dutch internment. He was in the terrific fighting at Gallipoli and in the battle of the Somme, having refused a staff appointment, like his brother, because he was determined to share the fortunes of his men. Twice wounded in the storming of Beaucourt on Nov. 13 1916, but still advancing and setting an example which, as his commander wrote,” thrilled with pride the men of his battalion,”he was struck a third time by a shell and killed. In memory of him [his father], Lord Rothermere in 1919 established and endowed the chair of naval history at Cambridge which bears his name.

Source: 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, Harold Sidney Harmsworth Rothermere

South Harringay Infant School wall

Before its present incarnation as an infants school, South Harringay Infant school was a girls grammar school (until 1951). The boards around the assembly hall give us a glimpse of that earlier time

From British History online: Hornsey county school opened in 1904, as Hornsey higher elementary school, on land which had been acquired by the board east of South Harringay school. It accommodated 340 mixed pupils in 1906, when average attendance was 127, and changed its name on passing to the county council in 1908. The school was converted from a grammar to a girls’ secondary modern in 1951  and was absorbed into the comprehensive Hornsey school for girls in 1967.