Comfy!

You are supposed to call it 'The Health Centre,' but as we all know it is the San. The modern San is pretty much unchanged from when I was at school - even the fading school photos in the waiting area are the same. I rather like that! Of course we all know that Albans was originally the San, and that is a much nicer building (if you happen to like Victorian red brick, which I do) than the low flat roofed modern San built onto the side of Highfield.

That building is still there, but it has now been improved by being obscured. For ages it has been clear that the Lower School girls' boarding facilities were not up to it, and an extension has been built onto the side of Highfield to provide dormitories, a common room and a Tutor's flat. The new building wraps round the San and hides it from view.

The result is a first for Haileybury: a House with accommodation - suitably segregated - for boys and girls. I gather that when the school went fully coeducational it was decided that separate Houses would be necessary. That has always seemed to me a shame. Maybe the new Highfield points the way to a more thorough integration of boys and girls in one school.

Whistling

Returning to the great work of Rex Whistler (Hi 1919) here is the self portrait he put into the great mural in the dining room at Plas Newydd.

It is an extraordianry piece full of references to the Anglesey family and places associated with them. The tromp l'oile effects are stupendous, mountains which change their aspect as you walk down the room and footprints which seem to change their direction depending where one views them from. There are all sorts of places from London to Venice to Brighton in the painting, but not Haileybury I think.

Annexed

First of all, apologies for the long gap in posting. All I can do is plead pressure of other commitments. There is a meeting of the General Committee tomorrow and of the Council on Friday, so I have a Haileybury week, but posting has been light.

On Saturday I went was at school watching number one son and his team being thrashed in a cricket match on Hailey Field. I went up to Highfield to collect number two and took these pictures of the Alban's Annex. Or rather, of where the annex was.

A new boarding block for the Lower School girls is being built on what was the (new) San carpark and the annex is being converted to provide for a House Tutor's flat and to link the building with Alban's.

I gather that the annex was the place to live in the VI in Alban's. Mythology said that it was the morgue of the old San.

Last year as a member of Council we went on a tour to inspect the annex. There was an incredibly narrow corridor along the top floor of the part now demolished in the middle. 

The Evolution of Dormitories 4

The movement over the last twenty years has been to smaller and smaller dormitories for younger pupils and to bed sits for the more senior. The pattern has been to have a 'dormitory' for Removes and Middles and study bedrooms for Vths and above. When the school became co-educational the new Bartle Frere and Edmonstone were set up in this way. Colvin and Melvill meanwhile were equipped with single rooms throughout. Hailey has a dormitory (the old Upper) but the Lower was divided into rooms for four girls each. This is similar to what was done in Allenby when the conversion was made. That pattern has recently been replicated in Trevelyan and Thomason where the Removes and Middles live and work in rooms of four. (Four is a pastorally good number as it reduces the chances of a two on one division happening in a room.)

Meanwhile the new Lower School boys' accommodation in Highfield is in Dormitories of eight.  The Lower School girls' dormitory is in Alban's and while it has great character it is not as swish as the boys' rooms.

Many of the boys' houses have clever bunks in a "T" shape where the top bunk is at right angles to the bottom one and supported at either end by wardrobes.