The watercolour shows part of the school buildings which were converted from the medieval Sisters Hospital, or ‘Sustern Spital’ as it was also known. In 1739, Headmaster John Burton had bought the lease of these buildings, and set about creating a house for himself and boarding accommodation for a hundred ‘Commoners’, who were fee-paying pupils. The view here is of the South East side, which housed the tutors’ and prefects’ studies, the buttery, kitchen and dining-hall.  The elm tree was one of five, the others having been blown down in a hurricane the previous year.

The Old Commoners were notoriously cramped, uncomfortable and unhealthy. ‘Such was the Old Commoners of our boyhood – a strange, rambling, bizarre old place, as we all, I believe, thought it, possessing no atom of architectural dignity or grace, and uncomfortable to an extent of which not even boys could be unaware’ wrote a former pupil. The buildings were demolished in 1839-42, just after this drawing was made. Ironically, its replacement proved to be no better, and was described as ‘a mean block that resembled a cheap nineteenth century workhouse’. In 1869 these buildings were converted into classrooms and the Commoner pupils moved into the first boarding houses.

Provenance: Purchased, 2013