Estates Bursar David Anderson takes a look at the history of the campus through its architecture.
B social was designed by Old Radleians Merriman and Knapp-Fisher, who also designed the original Music School (in fact their names crop up across Radley’s campus).
B Social and the classrooms on the lower floors opened in 1931 at a cost of £32,700. The classrooms now house Classics and Theology (Classics and History until History moved to Clocktower Court. Theology moved from the David Rae Smith building in 2014.)
This new building enabled all of the Socials to be in separate areas for the first time, with the Social Tutor, PHM and Sub Tutor on site, the latter role being introduced in 1929.
The building opened in October 1931 at a time of financial depression and falling pupil numbers. These factors put a stop to a number of projects, notably a swimming pool next to College Pond and an extension to the Music School including a Speech Hall which would have sat where the Bursary Car Park is now. I am fascinated by the turn left/turn right moments that have enormous impacts on the school in future decades!
B Social was extended in 1991, giving all of the boys their own rooms and reducing the number of ‘bunksits’ which were rooms the same size as Shell cubicles with a raised bed and a desk underneath.
Interesting fact
The telephone box in the garden area by the games room (below) is a nod to the architect and designer Sir Giles Gilbert Scott who designed the original and is an ancestor of current B Social Tutor, Charlie Scott-Malden.
