1886, it was renamed St Mary's Home for Girls in 1893 and was an industrial school for girls aged 7–14 years old. The 1891 census records 30 girls living at the home. The home closed in 1946 and the buildings used as a nursery school until 1980. The former home is now divided into private residential properties. Saint Finian's Convent was built in 1906 as the home of Lady Alice Fitzwilliam. In 1912 she invited the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary to her home to start a school for 'poor girls of the Roman Catholic faith'. Before the children arrived in 1915, the convent provided convalescence for forty Belgian soldiers injured on the Western Front. By 1920, the school boarded 15 girls and in the 1920s the convent changed its name to St Gabriel's while the school retained the name of St Finian's. The Catholic architect Wilfred C. Mangan of Preston designed the chapel, which was built in 1934–36. During World War II, the convent provided refuge for evacuees from London and a spiritual centre for US soldiers based at nearby Greenham Common. The current St. Finian's Catholic Primary School opened in 1977 and the convent is now the Cold Ash Centre, an adult retreat and conference centre. Downe House School, a girls' boarding school, was founded by Olive Willis and Alice Carver in 1907 at Charles Darwin's former home, Down House, in Kent. The school outgrew its premises and moved to Cold Ash in 1922, taking over The Cloisters which was built by a religious order called the Order of Silence in 1913. St Peter's, a red brick house built in about 1700 and a Grade II listed building, is now part of the school. Former pupils of Downe House include the broadcaster Clare Balding, the actress and comedian, Miranda Hart, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and her sister, Pippa Middleton. Amenities In 1925, the Acland Memorial Hall opened. It was built on land donated by Reginald Acland who had worked to provide a recreational facility for the village before his death in 1924. Sir Reginald and his family lived at Thirtover Place which was bought by Girl Guiding Royal Berkshire in 1990 and today provides a range of residential and day activity camps for community groups. Cold Ash has a shop, post office and two public houses, the Castle Inn and the Spotted Dog. The village also has a Women's