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5
ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE
Descriptions of the School’s early
years are taken from
A New History of
St Edward’s School, Oxford, 1863-2013,
by Malcolm Oxley, available (£25) from
the OSE Office (01865 319362).
the first cloisters, the Chapel, the Lodge, Big
School (the Library and Old Library), and
New Buildings (Mac’s).
Now, over 130 years after it was first
conceived, a new development unveiled this
month by the School will complete ‘Simeon’s
dream’. ‘This is a game-changer for the
School’, said the Warden. ‘At a stroke, it will
transform the academic life of St Edward’s,
creating contemporary and versatile spaces
to reflect today’s teaching and learning
practices.’ ‘The School is growing’, explained
the Bursar, Stephen Withers Green, ‘and
we, like Simeon, need to prepare. The
development will provide a purpose-built
Library, a spacious and flexible university-
style Academic Centre, and, in its final
phase, a striking new Hall (working title: the
Velodrome) with room for 1,000 people.’
Nicola Hunter, Deputy Head Academic
and the School’s architecture expert, added,
‘This development not only completes the
south-east corner of Simeon’s Quad but
also provides a new, attractive mini-quad
beyond. It is always a challenge to add new
buildings to historic ones, and we have given
the design a great deal of thought. The
architect, Nick Hardy (TSH Architects), has
taken some of the gothic revival features of
the original buildings, such as high-pitched
roofs, the cloister and the colour scheme,
and re-invented them. We wanted the new
buildings to be ‘architecturally well-mannered’
in relation to the rest of the School, but we
were determined to avoid pastiche – so the
new buildings are unashamedly contemporary,
using materials such as concrete and glass to
echo and complement their surroundings, but
with the thread of red brick giving unity to
the composition. We are delighted with the
proposals, described as ‘architecture of the
highest order’ by the Oxford Design Review
Panel, one of the bodies we consulted.’
A planning application for the new
development will be submitted to Oxford
City Council within the next few weeks. It is
hoped that construction will begin in 2018,
with phase 1, the Academic Centre, to be
complete by 2020.
The new Library and Academic Centre
The new Hall: the Velodrome