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

P AGE N O : 48 The extension of the old Box Room now transferred to a Masters’ Dining Room with new walls, flooring, panelling and decoration ‘Apsley Gate’ the residence of Alan Wilding is now complete, Reverend Cedric Sowby’s house next door ‘is hardly begun’. Subway work hit by numerous delays, weather, planning issues and builders’ disputes (October 1928) By December - ‘the walls of the Dining Room have reached their full height, the staircase to (Big) School is complete, the new entrance to the old playground is finished and the garden wall repaired; the ground work of the new Laboratories is begun, the work on the subway has nearly got through its most difficult preliminary (the moving of the main sewer) though the excavation of the passage itself has only just been begun’ (December Chronicle) Changes to the kitchens commenced During the digging out of the dock at the Boathouse it is found that the City Boundary Stone is in the way. Permission is obtained to move it with the inscription ‘This stone was moved 20 feet in a northward direction in 1925’ made in bronze and ‘affixed to it by us’ (December Chronicle) Subway opened 7 th May 1929 by the Mayor of Oxford and a large party of council officials, considered a major engineering triumph (March 1929 Chronicle) Inauguration of the Development Fund - launched by a letter to parents and O.S.E. in the Chronicle; after a slow start, the fund reaches £30,000 (£2,542,000 today) by 1963 Fire-Escape Door fitted to Big School Freehold of Field House purchased by the School from the Simeon Estate, together with its two cottages for £1,100 (£93,170 today) (Governors’ Meeting, January 1928) The ‘dump’ (the residue from previous building works) behind Field House is levelled and the ground prepared by the Outdoor Bath for four tennis courts so as to allow the transfer of the present tennis courts from the cricket square - total expenditure £260 (£22,022 today). 1929 - The enlargement of Hall ( Brook Kitchin design ) now complete, roofed and new flooring installed by the Easter Holidays - cost £5,000 (£425,000 today) (Governors’ Meeting, October 1928) Following gales in November 1928 much repair work needed around the School especially to the roof of the New Buildings Work on the Science Building halted by frost Warden’s House’s new entrance hall completed ( Brook Kitchin design ) and the Waiting Room for the Sanatorium finished - joint cost is £400 (£34,000 today) On 28 th March for the first time the whole School dine together in the enlarged Dining Hall ( Brook Kitchin design ), with three new hotplates installed between the central pillars. Former Warden John Millington Sing and the architect, Brook Kitchin, are special guests at the High Table (March Chronicle) ‘The new (Dining) Hall is now complete and a great success. The removal of the old front was a difficult problem, which has been successfully solved. The old shields are now all in place and add a pleasant touch of colour. The four portraits hang over High Table’ (June Chronicle). Twelve new tables purchased for the Dining Hall at a cost of £150 (£12,750 today). The Dining Hall and other current building changes costs amount to £24,799 (£2,107,915 today) (Governors’ Meeting, February 1929)