School mainly late nineteenth century, institutional red brick, as can be seen in the snap left. The old chapel, from much the same, out front and now linked to the main building by a handsome linking pavilion. A pavilion containing offices such as cloakrooms, which made it possible to use what had been the chapel for concerts and art exhibitions. A handsome chapel inside, unfrocked, with a quite decent looking Yamaha grand where the altar used to be. Substantial roof timbers left exposed and brown.
Art rather mixed, as one would expect, some quite good and some sold. We wondered about the etiquette of buying and selling in such a show. Did some members sink so low as to buying their own work through a proxy so as to earn one of the coveted red spots? The art exhibition episode of Mapp & Lucia comes to mind.
The school, as can be seen in the aerial scene to follow, was loosely modeled on an Oxbridge college. Main entrance and old chapel around a small courtyard opening out onto the Epsom Road (bottom right). Main buildings, including new chapel and (separate, much larger) hall around a large quadrangle out back. Probably a house for the headmaster - or whatever they call the headmaster of such a place. Sundry newer buildings scattered about the site and playing fields out back. A school which started out in north London as a home for the children of poor clergy who could be trained up to be the choir of what must have been a rich & fashionable church in St. John's Wood. A school which had moved to Leatherhead and become a full blown private school by, say, the 1930's. Perhaps as a relatively new school, more like the Leys of my home town, rather than the Perse. It certainly shares red brick with the Leys.
In round numbers, £7,500 a term for day pupils, £10,000 a term for boarders. And like all the best care homes, plenty of extras. Although, if you can take the shame, you can claim a small discount if your child is ill. All of which would have been a fairly crippling expense for the likes of us, even supposing that I approved of such places. There is also the question of who stumped up what must have been a lot cash to build the place in the first place, say in the closing years of the nineteenth century? Was it a filthy rich capitalist who, having made a lot of dosh on the back of workers, out of their taste for strong drink or both, wanted to put a bit back? Wanted to do a bit of philanthropy? Not that it would do said workers much good. Or was it a speculative builder with a job lot of red bricks to find a home for?
Then this morning I get to ponder on how art clubs work. Does one do art at their meetings? Do you take it in turns to give talks about your craft? Or bring in outsiders to do same? Do they do trips to studios? Is their a strong hierarchy built, at least in large part, on artistic merit rather than seniority? Are they just an excuse for dating & mating of like minded souls?
I imagine that many clubs, although perhaps not art clubs, were, in some large part, a place where working men could both get away from the cramped confines of their family life and ape their betters. To have officers, committees, constitutions, minutes and points of order. Posh people keen on, say, their leeks, were not excluded, but they had to know their place. Here they were rank and file. Similar in that way to the nonconformist chapels which sprang up all over the place in the nineteenth century, places where working people could get away from the nobs and squires.
I associate to the masons, a club which, along with some rather odd features, had admirable charitable aims and admirably democratic practices. The electrician really can rub shoulders with the general, to the improvement of all. Although that said, it may well be that those claiming royal blood are excused clambering through the ranks in the ordinary way, with their entry level being Grand Sword Bearer or above.
Reference 1: http://www.stjohnsleatherhead.co.uk/.
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