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

P AGE N O : 66 measuring 58ft long by 28ft - at either end, above, is a Lecture Room and Art Room of equal size and some space also for pottery. The flooring is made of Muhuhu wood. The building is in full use by the Winter Term of 1954 With the new Memorial Library completed, two new class rooms are provided from the previous Library, one fitted with gas and water for Science teaching if necessary (Jack Tate list 1955) Roof repairs and cleaning of the nave in Chapel completed necessitating ‘an intricate mass of tubular scaffolding up to the roof’ (January Chronicle) Married quarters ( Keith Stevens design ) built on the end of the Segar’s Block and occupied by the Veitch family in September 1955 at a cost of £4,329 (£163,203 today) after several economies had been undertaken compared to the original specification (General Purposes Meeting, October 1954) Various suggested improvements in School House (toilets, studies and remedial work) deferred due to costs involved (General Purposes Meeting, May 1954) Six acres of Blenheim Drive sold to a firm of Oxford builders at a price of £5,949 (£224,277 today), a ‘healthy profit’ which might be used for the building of married House Masters’ quarters (General Purposes Meeting, May 1954) Mr. Fielding Dodd, Architect, hired for one year to act as Consulting Architect looking at the School's current accommodation and future needs at a fee of £75 (£2,828 today) (General Purposes Meeting, October, 1954) Hot showers after games seen as a priority by the new Warden. However, with the central boilers now available in the main Changing Rooms there is some doubt whether the existing system could stand the extra load of water in the worst conditions, without affecting ‘evening baths’ - further expert guidance is being sought (General Purposes October, 1954) A City plan to route a relief sewer ‘within and along the whole of the eastern boundary of the School’s land west of the Woodstock Road’ made known to the Governors. The School’s solicitors and Sanitary Engineers had looked at the plan and satisfactorily settled various matters including the route of the sewer in the School fields, reinstatement of top soil, responsibilities for any deterioration attributable to the sewer, the covering of manholes in the fields, restriction of work and routine repairs on the playing fields to the School holiday periods (General Purposes Meeting, October, 1954) In his final report to Governors in July 1954, Warden Henry Kendall states: ‘In 1925 when I became Warden, no building had been possible between 1881 and 1925 except the Sanatorium in 1922 and the Memorial Buildings in 1925. The playing fields amounted to 19.5 acres and we had no Boat House or boats. Today in 1954 we have class rooms, Science Laboratories,110 acres of freehold land, Boathouse, boats and Cottage, Squash Courts, Subway, three new boys, Boarding Houses, the Chapel, Kitchens, Dining Hall, and Big School (all enlarged) and seven Masters houses, five cottages and the Memorial Library’ (Governors’ Meeting, July 1954) Bathroom added to Field House Gate Lodge (Jack Tate list 1955) Sanatorium Isolation Wards used as additional Music Practice rooms (Jack Tate list 1955). 1955 - On 19 th November 1955 the presentation of a stained-glass window ( Hugh Easton design ) to the School is made by the Air Council of the R.A.F. in the person of Air Chief Marshal Sir Frank Fogarty ‘in recognition of the fine record of boys from St. Edward’s in the R.A.F’. The window is installed in the north wall of the new Memorial Library (January 1956 Chronicle) later moved several times, today in the Warden’s House