The Building of St Edward's School: A Chronology (1870 - 2020)

P AGE N O : 113 Plans for the new Performing Arts Centre moving ahead in the area presently occupied by the Junior Common Room, the Laundry, the old Indoor Pool, the Archives and the kitchen stores. Estimated cost is £3,800,000 (£8,312,000 today) (Summer 2004 Chronicle) Final stage of the Apsley refurbishment at the eastern end on the top floor taking place Segar’s House move southwards to a new site after seventy years at the old Phase Two of Avenue House ( Blackwood Architects Design ) is now considered the School’s priority building project, with hopeful completion by September 2005 (General Purposes, June 2004). Planning permission received (General Purposes, February 2005) School offered 47 Stratfield Road for £425,000 (£909,500 today) with a view to providing extra staff accommodation (General Purposes, October 2004) ‘Enabling work’ required to facilitate the new Arts Centre will cost £300,000, with the main expenditure being on the boiler relocation (General Purposes, February 2005). 2005 - Completion of Phase 2 of Avenue House ‘alongside Corfe’; all the 52 girls involved will be in by September. Avenue Lodge (again re-named Cooper House) converted to staff flats and as a new VI th Form Centre (Winter 2005 Chronicle) Preparatory work on the North Wall Performing Arts Centre in South Parade due to begin in the Summer of 2005. Included will be a 250 seat theatre built ‘within the walls of the old Indoor Swimming Pool and adjoining buildings will be replaced to provide an exhibition space and two studios for dance and drama’ (Summer 2005 Chronicle) Building used for Junior Common Room, class rooms, Careers Room and School Laundry demolished and each relocated Design Centre now houses a Plastics Room and a Jewellery Room to serve the new G.C.S.E. course in Jewellery Tilly’s and Cowell’s refurbished Confirmation that the new all-weather pitch will be named after Christopher Lawless (O.S.E.) at the request of the Martyrs (Governors’ Meeting, June 2005). 2006 - Building developments about to begin on the old Piggeries site, for a single-storey building for the ground staff Accommodation within the Warden’s House transformed. Originally the home of the Warden and his family, where also School business was conducted and where School receptions took place. In 1992 Warden David Christie had moved to 289 Woodstock Road. After that time some of the upper floor accommodation was used for Apsley, while the downstairs rooms continued with their original use, but more space is now needed and some of the original features of the building have lost some of their lustre. The aim of this update is ‘to achieve a greater sense of space and light also having the ability to display pupils’ work and achievements, a play area for younger visitors as well as re-decorating, re wiring and the inclusion of more modern furniture’ (Summer 2006 Chronicle) Improvements made in Sing’s, Tilly’s, Field House, Macnamara’s and Oakthorpe Houses Dining Room overhauled: the old tables and benches removed and replaced with round tables and chairs. Plan is that everyone eats together: pupils, teachers, support and maintenance staff