Repton and its neighbourhood

by F. C. Hipkins

Mr. Cattley’s and Mr. Forman’s Houses.

Mr. Gould’s House.

Over the door at the east end is a brass tablet bearing the following inscription:—

IN HONOREM PRÆCEPTORIS OPTIMI
STEUART ADOLPHI PEARS S.T.P.
SCHOLÆ REPANDUNENSI PROPE VIGINTI ANNOS PRÆPOSITI
UT INSIGNIA EJUS ERGA SCHOLAM ILLAM ANTIQUAM BENEFICIA
MONUMENTO PERPETUO IN MEMORIAM REVOCARENTUR HOC ÆDIFICIUM
AMICI ET DISCIPULI EJUS EXTRUENDUM CURAVERUNT.
A. S. MDCCCLXXXVI.

Portraits of Drs. Sleath, Peile, Pears, and Huckin, adorn its walls.

In 1888 the block of four Form rooms on the east side of the Priory was built, and a year later the old “Big School” was dismantled, its floor and ceiling were covered with oak, and, later on, its walls were panelled with oak, and shelves of the same material were affixed to them, it was fitted up with oak tables and seats, as a Sixth Form library. The inner room is about to be similarly fitted up. How former generations of O.R.s would stare if they could see the accommodation for the present Sixth Form! When Dr. Bigsby was a boy at School “the chair and desk of the Headmaster were under the canopy of time-stained oak, on a raised stage or platform,” at the north end of the room, “ascended, on either side, by steps. The space thus separated from the floor beneath was formerly enclosed in the manner of a pew, and contained seats for the accommodation of nearly the whole of the Sixth or head form. The approach was by a door at either side, situate above the steps.” This “pew,” much to the sorrow of the Dr., was removed in the year 1821.

In 1883-4 roof was raised, and new “studies” were built at the Hall. During the last ten years additional blocks of class rooms, laboratories, fives-courts, and a Porter’s Lodge (the gift of the present Headmaster) have been added.

The last improvement is now (1899) being made. In the year 1890 the Governors acquired the freehold of the “Hall Orchard,” at its south end a Sanatorium was erected and opened in the year 1894. The “Orchard,” owing to the unevenness of its surface, could not be used, properly, for games, so subscriptions for levelling it were asked for, O.R.s and others responded, as usual, in a very liberal manner, and the work was commenced at the end of last year. When finished there will be three fine “pitches,” one across the south end, and two, divided by a terrace, from it and themselves, down the remaining part of the “Orchard.” Owing to the unevenness referred to it was impossible to make it of one level.

Plate 14.