YOUNGSTERS at The Mount School in York turned back time to celebrate its 175th anniversary.

Staff and pupils at the girl's private school turned out in Victorian costume for a fun-packed day of activities yesterday.

The normal lessons were suspended for the day and everyone took part in a selection of historical activities, including lunch cooked to a menu from 1831, when the school was founded by Joseph Rowntree and other leading Quakers.

Head teacher Diana Gant said the way the school has evolved over the years is probably best illustrated by the creation of Tregelles, the junior school for boys and girls between the ages of three and 11.

It was named after Rachel Tregelles, the first "Superintendent" of The Mount when it moved in 1857 to its current home in Dalton Terrace.

Other milestones in the school's history include it being the first girls' school in the country to send a pupil to study science at Cambridge University, through a Girton Scholarship in 1879.

And it has had some famous past pupils, such as Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell and actress Dame Judi Dench.

Mrs Gant said: "The Mount is a unique school as it is the only Quaker all-girls' independent school in the country, and even from those early days when its innovative educational objective was 'to supply a religious and literary education to the daughters of Friends and those professing with them, residing within the limits of the Quarterly Meeting of York', The Mount has continued to be at the forefront of educational innovation and achievement."

Updated: 10:31 Wednesday, March 22, 2006