THE former home of the Romanticist painter JMW Turner and Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova will be turned into a Catholic girls’ primary school.

St Anthony’s School for Girls will open in Ivy House, in North End Road, Golders Green next September.

Ivy House, which was put on the market in January at £6.25million, was also most recently home to the London Jewish Cultural Centre.

Anna Pavlova lived at the house for nearly 20 years, until her death in 1931, and it is believed to have also been occupied by JMW Turner.

Run by the Alpha Plus Group, the two-form entry school will eventually cater for 280 pupils aged four to 11.

The building, which overlooks Golders Hill Park, will now be refurbished to provide 14 classrooms, specialist science and art rooms, as well as a multi-purpose hall for dining, drama and other uses.

Reception and Year 3 classes will open next year, and the school says it plans to grow organically after that.

A spokesman for Alpha said it will be run with “the same ethos and values” as the existing St Anthony’s School for Boys in Hampstead.

Julian Drinkall, CEO of Alpha Plus Group, said: “We are delighted to be opening St Anthony’s School for Girls. St Anthony’s School for Boys is a highly successful and popular school and we know that the news of a new girls’ school will be welcome to many local parents.

“The new school will help to address what is a growing demand in this area for girls’ education, and especially for Catholic girls’ education.

“We are grateful to the Diocese of Westminster for their consideration during this process and we are pleased to confirm that the Catholic ethos of the school will inform and guide its management and development in the coming years, as we have demonstrated in the case of the existing St Anthony’s School for Boys.”

He added: “The school will also welcome children from a non-Catholic background and we expect it to continue the excellent tradition of the boys’ school in contributing to the diverse, tolerant and inclusive nature of the local community.”