I’ll Never Forget...
how Court opened its face to the outside world ‘Each of the 15 lime trees on each side of the avenue was surrounded by a circular bench that was used mainly as a parking spot for bicycles…’
John Dancy (Master 1961-72) had recently come to Marlborough from Lancing College. Observing his penchant for wearing a university gown, I assumed (but, alas, never asked) that it was he who had instigated the removal of the lime trees in order to replicate the stately lawn of an Oxford college. Regardless of who deserves credit for it, the result was to open up the courtyard in such a way that the College is no longer obscured but visible and looking out to the world. By the time I left Marlborough, I realised that the famous double row of lime trees obscuring the view of C House had not always been a feature of the College. Evidently, the trees were planted sometime during the second half of the 19th century after the College was founded; this assertion is based on numerous prints, including a splendid one on the College website (About: College History). It shows travellers on a stagecoach approaching the Castle Inn in the days before the College was founded, first circling a lawn similar to, but larger than, that of today. My uncle, Peter Hutchison (PR 1921-25) used to remind me that the founding of Marlborough was a consequence of the opening of the Great Western Railway from London to Bristol, engineered and built in the 1840s by Isambard Brunel. Once operational, the GWR rapidly bankrupted the horse-drawn stagecoaches that plied the route from London, causing the Castle Inn to go out of business. This created the opportunity for it to be purchased by the founders of Marlborough College.
T
he courtyard at Marlborough is the most striking image of the College. It is retained by many OMs and by all who pass in front of or through its gates. Crowned by C House at its head, it is flanked on the right by Chapel, A House and the rich redbrick of Norwood Hall and, on the left by classrooms, Library and the old B House. The lawn in the centre of this massive courtyard acts as a focus for rendezvous and all kinds of school activities, as well as being the centrepiece for the ever-popular Summer School.
With the bicentenary of the College almost, but not quite, round the corner in 2043, if I were Master of Ceremonies, I would commemorate it with a horsedrawn stagecoach driven down from London. After circling the courtyard, my coach would pull up to C House and deposit frock-clad clergymen clothed similar to those who founded the College all those years ago!
It was not always so! A major change giving it the striking form it has today came early in my stint at Marlborough. The then new Norwood Hall had just been completed and the construction of the (now old) art school, linking it to A House, followed over the next few years.
Norwood Hall in 1962
The biggest change was the removing of the avenue of lime trees that ran up the centre of the courtyard to C House. Each of the 15 lime trees on each side of the avenue was surrounded by a circular bench
that was used mainly as a parking spot for bicycles. So, the trees were cut down, the asphalt in the centre removed, and the lawns of today were laid and seeded.
Well before that date rolls round, I am confident that other OMs, local historians and archivists, who may know, and have access to, many more details than I about this important chapter in the College history, will be in touch. Alan Greenwood (C2 1962-66) The Marlburian Club Magazine
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