Farewell to Field

Any school in which no change or experiment takes place becomes dead – or at any rate deadly dull’  – John Ounsted, Headmaster, 1948-1970

The long-planned Field House demolition began after the autumn term Long Leave with the rear of the building coming down first and the frontage falling to the bulldozers during the week of 24^th November. The removal of one of our former boarding houses, due to its life-expired infrastructure, will create space for a grassy meadow opposite the rear of Oakview restaurant.

The Leighton Park governors had already begun to realise the need for a fourth senior boarding house in the late 1940s. George Cadbury Jr, a governor and one of the School’s chief benefactors, started a trust in 1950 to provide for a new building and donated shares for that purpose. By the 1960s the fund had grown to £100,000, sufficient for the construction of the new boarding house. So it was that Field House came into existence and opened its doors in September 1964. At its formal opening ceremony in June 1965 it was described as ‘magnificent’. The school roll was now able to rise from 250 towards 300 and beyond. In his 1963-4 annual report, the Headmaster, John Ounsted, jubilantly reported that of the 303 boys in the School, 80 were new pupils. This was a major step forward for the School: ‘We have in fact spent the year preparing as if it were for a new foundation’. Field continued to flourish as a boarding house for many more years, adapting when necessary to accommodate further changes in the School’s development – girls joined Field as day-boarders initially, and then towards the end of Field’s working life, the house became fully co-educational.

In 2022, the major reorganisation of houses within the School led to the closure of Field as a boarding house. It was, however a very useful temporary location for the Sixth Form Centre while the remodelling work in Grove was in progress. It has to be said that not everyone found Field aesthetically pleasing. An excoriating article in the school magazine ‘The Leightonian’ 1965 ends with: ‘Unfortunately the mistake is made and ineradicable—who knows? —we may get used to this ugly intruder.’ Sadly, defects in the physical structure of the building became more and more apparent in the later years of its life, and complete closure was inescapable.

Mark Simmons, former Housemaster and also Deputy Housemaster of Field House, reflected, “Field had a real soul. It emanated from a sense of belonging, itself a tribute to the hundreds of students who called it home every day and whose personalities, humour, commitment and verve made Field, Field.”

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