Chronicle April 2016

4 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

The Quad of the Future By the mid-1880s, after an energetic period of development, a number of significant school buildings had been constructed; Simeon began to look to the future with confidence. Working with Wilkinson, he drew up a bold and detailed ‘This is a game-changer... At a stroke, it will transform the academic life of St Edward’s.’ The Warden scheme for his School (below). With a roll of only 80 pupils at the time, his vision might

have been dismissed as grandiose or wildly ambitious, but it is remarkable how closely today’s reality resembles the early plans. When Simeon completed his drawing, school buildings existing or under construction on the Quad consisted of the Warden’s House, Main Buildings (Apsley and the Dining Hall),

In 1872, things were not looking good in New Inn Hall Street, the School’s original home. ‘The bannisters fell off the staircase and the floor of the dining room collapsed into the cellar below … a great chunk of the external wall crumbled.’ Unsurprisingly, an architect called in to review the building declared it ‘beyond repair and unsafe.’ The Headmaster (and later first Warden) of St Edward’s, Reverend Algernon Simeon, with characteristic drive and determination, rose to the challenge. Casting about for another site, he eventually settled on land in the ‘miserable, dirty little village’ of Summertown and paid £7,000 of his own money for five acres of turnip fields. Building works immediately commenced under the noted local architect William Wilkinson (who also designed the Randolph Hotel) and the School took up residence in the partially built premises in 1873.

Simeon’s vision