Альденхемская школа: История и традиции старейшего футбольного клуба Англии

Aldenham School is a co educational private boarding and day school for pupils aged eleven to eighteen, located between Elstree and the village of Aldenham in Hertfordshire, England. There is also a preparatory school for pupils from the ages of five to eleven. It was founded in the late sixteenth century by Richard Platt.

The school was founded in 1597 by Richard Platt, owner of a City of London brewery and Master of the Worshipful Company of Brewers in 1576 and 1581. In 1596, Queen Elizabeth I granted him letters patent to build "the Free Grammar School and Almshouses" at Aldenham; the foundation stone was laid in 1597. Before Platt died in 1600 he obtained an endowment for the School by a covenant between himself and the Brewers' Company. It became a free village grammar school for young boys, also taking in private pupils. In the early 19th century an investigation by the Education Charities Commission of the Poor led to the Tudor Grammar School being demolished and replaced by two new schools: a lower school providing an elementary education for the local population, and a grammar school for fee paying boarders. In the late 1860s, the Platt estate in St Pancras, which provided the endowment of the school, was compulsorily purchased for the construction of the St Pancras railway station, and the Midland Railway had to pay compensation of £91,000, 91000.0 in 1869 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years. In a measure described by the headmaster of the time as "a violent act of confiscation", the Endowed Schools Commissioners, acting under the Endowed Schools Act 1869, diverted more than half of this money to other schools. In their scheme approved in 1875, £20,000 went to the North London Collegiate School and Camden School for Girls, £13,333 6s 8d to support secondary education in Watford (see ), £10,000 to Russell Lane School, Southgate, and £8,000 to two elementary schools, Medburn School, Radlett, and Delrow School, Aldenham.

Football has been a major sport at Aldenham since the dawn of the game. In 1825 Aldenham became the second place, after Eton College, to write down rules for its code of football. The Football Annual of 1873, edited by Charles W. Alcock, famous secretary of the Football Association and of Surrey County Cricket Club, states that Aldenham School Football Club was founded in 1825. This makes Aldenham School boast the title of having the earliest organised football club in the history of the game (something often awarded to Sheffield which began 29 years later in 1854). The original facsimile of Aldenham's entry in this 1873 Football Annual relating to this point, held by the Football Association itself, and being from such an authoritative source is perhaps grounds for the legal view that it is conclusive evidence. The late JR Witty, for so long on the staff of the Football Association wrote, "It was at such schools as Eton, Harrow, Westminster, Shrewsbury, Winchester and Aldenham and the like that Association Football, governed by the Laws of the Game which now operate, had its real formation." The Good Schools Guide called Aldenham "a seriously sporty school", as well as "intensely competitive."

A Stanley Spencer painting of The Crucifixion was commissioned by the Master of the Brewers Company, for the Aldenham School Chapel in 1958. Aldenham was used to film additional interior scenes in the 1968 classic British film If , directed by Lindsay Anderson. The most frequently used room was the main school Dining Room containing the portrait of Aldenham's founder Richard Platt. Aldenham was used for scenes in Tom Brown's Schooldays (2005 film). It was used for some scenes in the British satire Greed (2019 film).