The Schoolyard, Chapel Steps, and Lupton's Tower by E. D. Brinton. 1908. Watercolor. Facing p. 12, Stone. Eton College. Scanned image and text by George P. Landow. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one. ]
"THROUGH the archway are the Cloisters. The oriel window in the centre is Election Hall. The Founder's Statue is on the left, in the centre of the Schoolyard. The doorway on the extreme left belongs to the Master in College." [on onion-skin page facing plate.]
A Boy's First Sight of the Schoolyard
At half-past seven then, punctually, I found myself under the gate of the school-yard, ready to begin the regular work of school life. In front of me, forming the far side of the quadrangle, was. the clock-tower with its two pinnacles, and flanked on either side by the private rooms of the Provost and Fellows. The whole of the right side of the square was taken up by the chapel, the great size and architecture of which have made it familiar by name, if not by sight, even to non-Etonians. The spaces between the base of each buttress and its neighbour were raised slightly from the level of the quadrangle, and paved with large flagstones. Thus, how- ever unintentionally on the part of the architect, were formed several fairly good fives courts, which were rarely without occupants during any of the play-hours in the day-time. Opposite to this again, and on the left of the gateway where I stood, was the range of building appropriated to the scholars on the foundation, called peculiarly Collegers, in order to distinguish them from the Oppidans, or boys who lived in the town. Here was the ancient Long Chamber, venerable for its antiquity, as well as for the famous names which it had helped to rear. A continuation of the same line showed the small windows, each of which denoted a separate little room for the use of the bigger boys among those seventy which the whole building contained. Such at least was the information which I afterwards picked up, for it is not to be supposed that, coming to a new place for the first time, I took it all in by intuition. As I stood under the gateway that first morning, all I saw was the outline of the buildings, without having an idea as to what was within them; but since it is probable that others might care to be a little more enlightened than I was at the time, it has been necessary to borrow from knowledge of a more recent date. — Recollections of Eton, pp. 22-23.
References
An Etonian [Charles Frederick, d. 1892]. Recollections of Eton. London: Chapman and Hall, 1870.
Stone, Christopher. Eton. London: A. C. Black, 1909. Copy in the Rockefeller Library, Brown University.
Last modified 19 July 2006