Throughout its 110-year history, there have been many long-serving members of staff who have dedicated their lives to Downe House, and their stories are inextricable with the history of the School. Miss Nickel was one such character from the early years and although her previous life was something of a mystery about which she had taken a vow of silence, she was utterly devoted to Miss Willis and to the School.  

Miss Maria Nickel joined the Downe House staff as a Geography teacher in the early days when the School was still based in Kent. It quickly became apparent that her talents were considerable, and she soon left the classroom to become architect, builder, chauffeur, engineer and caretaker. One of the girls wrote that Miss Nickel could run up a building just as another might run up a dress; she was an excellent cook; her puff pastry was light as a feather and her cream-filled meringues were superb.   

She had left her home in Eastern Europe at a time of social and political unrest and made her way to Paris where she worked in medical research. It is believed that she was from Poland or Russia; she was well-educated, creative, energetic, musical and spoke twenty-three languages. Miss Nickel was usually to be seen wearing her distinctive felt hats, made for her in London, by Scotts of Old Bond Street, and an ankle length serge overall, belted at the waist with a packet of cigarettes tucked into the breast pocket. 

The girls and their parents would always enjoy talking with her as she was entering or leaving the pump room with a huge spanner in her hand, as she was heading up a ladder or as she was collecting girls from the station in the School car, a natty little De Dion-Bouton with a basket weave design. “She had never become used to driving on the left-hand side of the road” Miss Willis wrote, though she had found it necessary to write to parents to assure them that the girls’ stories of Miss Nickel rounding corners on two wheels were exaggerated. 

Miss Nickel may have owned the first school car, brought over from Paris; a left hand drive De Dion-Bouton with a basket weave decoration on the side panels.  Girls would regale their parents with stories of great speeds attained and rounding corners on two wheels when being driven to the school from the railway station and Miss Willis had to reassure them that exaggeration was likely and that 15 mph was usual! 

The reminiscences of the girls and members of staff who knew Miss Nickel show a great fondness and also a thrilling intrigue.  Though small, she had a deep, musical and slightly accented voice and as shooting was very popular with the girls here, she had apparently demonstrated superb marksmanship - she could split bricks standing on end at 40 yards. (The girls were coached on shooting with miniature rifles by Colonel Holditch Leicester here in Cold Ash, they showed great skill, often beating the schools of their brothers’ in interschool competitions!) 

Miss Nickel could be firm but had a gentle side, she could be both nurse and doctor, and delighted the girls by teaching them to cook over the Bunsen burners, but before gas was installed, over the methylated spirited lamps or on the solid fuel stove. Apparently her puff pastry was light as air, she was relatively extravagant when shopping for provisions in Newbury, and she flavoured her steak and kidney pies with cloves. Some of the fathers, when visiting, would seek her out to talk about furnaces, her secret recipe for mortar, her latest construction, different parts of the world and one described finding her in the kitchen, happily filling eclairs with cream using a piping bag, with a cigarette in her mouth (there was always a packet of Woodbines in the pocket of her overall). 

Named in her honour, Miss Nickel designed and built the School Library with the help of the team of maintenance men and it was officially opened in 1929. The impressive linenfold paneling was designed and carved by her. Pevsner’s Buildings of England (Berkshire) 2007, describes the Library as having ‘a tie-beam roof with curious woodwork, perhaps inspired by Japan, above the beams.’ 

The Nickel Room served as the School’s Library for ninety years until the Library moved to the newly-built Murray Centre, and it has now been converted into the Staff Common Room. 

From the reminiscences of girls and staff:  

“It is sad to think how many people will never know Miss Nickel. She was part of Downe; inseparable from the buildings she had helped to plan; wandering slowly and arthritically amongst them in a wide-brimmed hat, the long cassock, and the short serge coat. Only she understood the drains; only she the mysteries of the Chapel tower and just why it was unsafe to climb. On rare occasions, she would talk, in the Little Pantry while we were washing up, of philosophy, of how the barometer worked, of the time she worked with Fabre in North Africa. Her face was parchment-coloured, her eyes deep blue and very penetrating. She smoked and had more than a smoker’s cough. We never saw her smile. Yet after talking with her we would feel uniquely privileged.” 

“Happily the dear unorthodox figure of Miss Nickel is a familiar memory to the vast majority of those who have been at Downe so far.  But I think no generation younger than my own will have experienced the richness of her geography lessons in the Tower*.” 

*the old Water Tower which was where the Murray Centre now is. 

“One day Miss Willis asked me to take a message to her, and I ran her to ground in the engine room*, where, seated on an upturned box, in amidst the clanking machinery she was completely absorbed reading Euclid. “ 

*this was under the central area, between what is now Aisholt’s front door, and Wakefield House.  

“One bright moonlight night, I was coming back from Ancren Gate, when I nearly died of fright, because in the middle of the drive a ghostly form rose up in front of me out of the ground.  I was rooted to the spot but it turned out to be Miss Nickel heaving herself out of a manhole and she greeted me with her gutteral voice. “ 

“There were rumours in my time that she could play the violin like an angel. But I don’t think many people know, though I had experience of this, that she could be both doctor and nurse, of infinite gentleness and very deft.” 

“Most of us were devoted to her and had the sense to realise what an interesting person she was.”

Miss Nickel’s memorial on the western end of the school chapel, where her ashes are scatted, says simply ‘Designer and Builder’.  

(the memorial says Miss Nickel + friend, so we imagine that is that the ashes of one of the DH animals were scattered with hers).

Miss Maria Nickel was at Downe House 1912 - 1946.