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

P AGE N O : 50 north beside the Armoury where they do extensive service for many years as ‘temporary class rooms, Music Rooms, the Geography Faculty, the boys’ Carpentry Shop and giving shade to the Vehicle Maintenance Section’ (Hill, 1963) A new Turkish Carpet for the Warden’s Hall sanctioned at the February 1930 Governors’ Meeting. Agreement reached to give up the School Farm altogether with the lease expiring in December 1931 and in so doing approach the Duke of Marlborough to ask at what price he would be willing to sell the field adjoining the School property to the north-west (Governors’ Meeting, December, 1930). Initial offer by the School of £240 per acre (£20,592 today) turned down by the Duke (Governors’ Meeting, February, 1931), final deal done at £300 (£25,740 today) per acre (Governors’ Meeting, November 1931). 1931 - Four ‘temporary’ huts removed to clear the way to building the new ‘Work Block’. ‘The new Class Rooms in conjunction with the new Science Building ( Brook Kitchin design ) will accommodate, in modern conditions of general comfort, the whole School for teaching purposes. It is hoped that the building will be ready by next September’ (March Chronicle) Six Squash Courts built in the field ‘on the further side of the Outdoor Pool’. Built by T.H. Kingerlee & Sons, the costs are £385 (£33,957 today) Apsley and Sing’s Houses move into the Main Buildings in order to form a ‘School House’, an innovation introduced by Warden Kendall, based on his Shrewsbury School experience . Tilly’s House move to the Memorial Buildings, Cowell’s to the newly re-named Corfe House with the current occupants transferring to Apsley Paddox taking the ‘Field House’ name with them. Thus the ‘Field House’ name left the School grounds for the next thirty four years before returning within Kendall Quad after the sale of Apsley Paddox All teaching now to take place in the new Work Block (July 1931 Chronicle). This building is opened on 27 th November 1931 by Dr. H.A.L. Fisher, Warden of New College, Oxford in the presence of the Mayor and Corporation of Oxford. Kingerlee have built it ‘with extraordinary speed’. At a stroke, all Class Room space is removed from the Boarding Houses and frees Room 18 in Big School which becomes available as a Reading-Room for the whole School. The Library is transferred to what later became Rooms A and B and for over twenty years forms one long room A paved path links Big School with the new Work Block flanked by two trees, the cedar being the gift of Sir Francis Wylie (O.S.E. & School Governor) The Chapel will be enlarged by the attachment of a new porch ( Brook Kitchin design ), on the western end. The present Ante-Chapel will then form part of the Chapel proper by the removal of a screen. A Choir-Vestry will be constructed in the North Cloister, and the present Vestry will eventually be a Memorial Chapel. The new extension will afford room for fifty-six more seats in Chapel (July Chronicle). Entry will no longer be through the old Cloisters but instead by two doors opening to the north and south ‘Additions and alterations in Main Buildings are now nearly finished’ (July Chronicle). These include a new School House Reading Room, and the demolishment of the original ‘Beehive’, which is converted into an office for the Apsley Housemaster and a room for the Apsley Prefects’ The New Library nearly complete in the new Work Block ( Brook Kitchin desig n) with the Old Library in Big School being turned into a Reading and Writing Room (December 1931 Chronicle) The old smaller Fives Court converted into part of the Changing Rooms along the north wall perimeter