"The wear-and-tear of four centuries, which included the rough usage of many generations of schoolboys, had rendered this venerable building quite unfit for its purposes. The gaping roof and broken windows, which freely admitted the rain and snow, wind and sun; the beams, cracked and hung with cobwebs; the cavernous walls, with many a gash inflicted by youthful Dukes and Earls in their boyish days; the chairs, scorched by many a fire, and engraven deep with many a famous name—provoked alternately the affection and derision of Westminster students."[120]
So the Dormitory was doomed, and was re-built by Lord Burlington after designs by Sir Christopher Wren, in the College Garden—a lovely space of cool green beyond the Little Cloisters—where it stands to this day.
The school of Westminster has been always intimately connected with the Abbey Church, since the days when the abbot sat on one side of the Great Cloisters with his monks, and the master of the novices on the other with his disciples. And quaint customs still survive from early days in which the Chapter and the Scholars take part more or less.
Across the Great School runs the famous Bar, over which it is the duty of the college cook to toss a pancake on Shrove Tuesday "to be scrambled for by the boys and presented to the Dean." Once a year the Dean and Chapter "receive in the Hall the former Westminster Scholars, and hear the recitation of the Epigrams, which have contributed for so many years their lively comments on the events of each passing generation,"[121] a relic of the old custom by which the Dean and Prebendaries dined in the College Hall—the ancient Refectory—with all the School. Every Sunday and Saint's day during the school year, the Westminster Scholars troop into the Choir in their white surplices in front of the Abbey body, and take the seats which have been theirs by right since the coronation of James the Second. And in modern days their shouts from those seats have testified the assent of the people of England to the sovereign's election in the Coronation Service.
And now from the shouts of the young, vigorous, active boys of Westminster, let us turn once more to the Abbey. In its still dim aisles, under the vaulted, misty roof, let us bid a tender and loving farewell to its children—the Holy Innocents who have "gone before"—whose sweet memories live in the minds of men; whose souls are safe in God's good keeping; and whose ashes rest in England's Pantheon.
FOOTNOTES:
[109] Strickland. "Lives of the Queens of England." Vol. VII. p. 237.
[110] "Memoirs of Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester." By Jenkin Lewis. p. 7.
[111] "Memoirs of Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester." By Jenkin Lewis. p. 8.
[112] Memoirs. Jenkin Lewis. p. 8.