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

P AGE N O : 95 Agreement reached to erect a second bungalow at the Boathouse for Geoffrey Beesley, the long-time School Boatman (Governors’ meeting, March 1970) School sells 45 Oakthorpe Road for £5,000 (£74,500 today) Consideration being given to enlarging the School Chapel with a maximum seating capacity of 350 people required (Governors’ Meeting, November 1970) Agreement to proceed with the sale of 214 Woodstock Road for best offer over £10,000 (£149,000 today) (General Purposes, November 1970). 1971 - Charles Henry Christie appointed the School’s ninth Warden. 1972 - In November the Chronicle notes that in the ‘last decade St. Edward’s has been extensively modernised at a cost of nearly £400,000 (£7,640,000 today)’. Now there is a need for ‘a Multi-Purpose Hall, flexible enough to be used for small gatherings, but large enough for those full scale events which at present have to be divided, or relayed outside, or elsewhere in the town’. As a consequence of this proposed new building, Big School will be freed up for use as a Library and the present Library will become a Design Centre, and there will then be further improvements affecting grounds and games’. To fund this extensive work, a Centenary Appeal for £150,000 (£2,865,000 today) is launched as ‘a fitting way to commemorate the School’s move to the present site in 1873’ School acquires land at the rear of 52 Oakthorpe Road (Box 15) Plans reviewed for a multi-purpose hall on a site adjacent to and immediately east of the present Big School and adjoining the Memorial Library and Art School building. The architects involved are Peter Falconer & Partners with the specific responsibility falling to Roger Fitzsimmons. The Third 50 years 1973 - The Appeal for the new building programme reaches £119,000 (£2,130,100 today) but the full amount is ‘needed for the first stage’ - a starting date is provisionally stated as Autumn 1973 with ‘parts of it’ being completed by Gaudy 1974. ‘Given enough support it would be possible to move onto the next stage - the Sports Hall’ (May Chronicle). By November the Appeal has reached £134,000 (£2,398,600 today) but planning is delaying progress, ‘as the present Big School is a listed building’ (November Chronicle) Cost of the proposed new Hall has risen from the original quote of £120,000 to £160,000 (£2,148,000 to £2,864,000 today) due to ‘cost of inflation’. The architects asked to go back and produce a new plan with costs no more than £110,000 (£1,969,000 today) (General Purposes, February 1973). Final plans presented by architects with a new costing of £112,000 (£2,004,800 today) (Governors’ Meeting, March, 1973) The buildings around the Quadrangle included by the Department of Environment in one of its lists of buildings of special architectural or historic interest include ‘Buildings known as Big School, Chapel, Apsley House, Warden’s House, Macnamara’s House, Tilly’s House, situated in the City of Oxford’. This causes problems with the proposed new Hall building which will now also need listed building consent which may delay the whole project by three months (Governors’ Meeting, June 1973) - also costs for the new Hall are once again rising and the latest projection is a minimum of £140,000 (£2,560,000 today) (Governors’ Meeting, June 1973) Cowell Gates widened