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.

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.