Richard Platt was a native of Aldenham and like many gentlemen of his time, he saw the importance of the new styles of learning then spreading from the continent.

The area had been acquired as pasture land in 1575, and Platt gave the land to the Brewers’ Company in trust for Aldenham School.

Platt was concerned at the state of education in England after the church schools had largely been dissolved by Henry VIII. It was becoming the philanthropic custom for wealthy merchants to give free Grammar Schools in their home towns with London estates of land.

Platt bequeathed three local fields near St Pancras church and, in reverse, some land at Aldenham, including Medburn Farm, to be controlled for the school by the Brewers’ Company.

In 1811 the Brewers’Company obtained an Act of Parliament for ’improving the estate’. Building development began at the southern end on each side of Brewer Street (now Midland Road) and as far north as Aldenham Street. North of here, building did not begin until 1839 and went on until 1852.

The fields at St Pancras also became Platt Street, Medburn Street with Barclay Street and Charrington Street named after firms of brewers. Goldington Crescent, formerly part of the Bedford Estate was also acquired by the Brewers’ Company.

In the 1860s, the Platt estate was compulsorily purchased for the construction of St Pancras railway station. In a measure described by the headmaster of the time as "a violent act of confiscation", more than half of the £81,000 compensation was diverted by the Charity Commissioners elsewhere.

The original Aldenham Street later disappeared and its western part - Glenville Street - which had been renamed to become Aldenham Street, became its sole section.

Other streets following this school land endowment custom include the later building of Rugby Street, Tunbridge Street, Bedford Row and Lyon’s Place.