BAKING has become so popular the Chepstow Gardening Club show this Sunday at the Drill Hall should be full of entries.

But Domestic Science classes that looked like this are a thing a of the past.

These young ladies were pupils at St Maur College, in Welsh Street, purpose built as a school it opened in 1895 – the building is still there, now flats. It was called St Maur after the house in Beaufort Square where the Misses Thomas who ran it, first opened their establishment in the 1870s. By the 1920s when this photo was taken for the prospectus, the school provided classes in a wide range of subjects. Exams were not compulsory but the aim was to develop “character, intellect and healthy growth of the child for the good of the community, to increase resource and initiative by practical work” and to bake good cakes.