Chapter 6
of Ralph Mann's Early Years

*Now Released*

Chapter 6

DURHAM HOUSE

The first three Houses on the Hill were built on the land of Kingham Hill Farm which the Founder bought from Robert Nicholl Byass on 29th September 1883. At that time, this was arable and pasture land. The ground was laboriously levelled to create a firm foundation for the buildings – the resulting earthwork can still clearly be seen. The main school buildings were later to be built on the ‘Upper Folly`; Durham House was built on a small field called ‘The Lower Folly`. Clyde and Sheffield Houses were built on a field called ‘Thistley Close`, and Bradford House was also later built on ‘The Lower Folly`. Durham House was opened on 14th September 1886 (or 11th September? See below), Clyde on 18th July 1888 and Sheffield on 18th September 1890. Later, Greenwich and Severn Houses were built on part of the ‘Upper Common`, Swansea House on ‘Rawns Furze`, and (the original) Norwich House on the ‘Old Way Brake`.

Durham House, as originally designed, consisted of three large downstairs rooms – playroom, dining room and living room – and three smaller rooms – the Superintendent's office, bathroom and kitchen. Attached to the kitchen was a large north-facing larder with spacious stone shelves. Upstairs were three boys' dormitories, and bedrooms for the Superintendent and his family. Of these rooms, only the office is still (2002) recognizable and unaltered. One of the characteristics of the Homes, as originally designed, was that they were based on the concept of the family. Therefore there was no ‘green baize door` separating the Superintendent's quarters from the boys' rooms. This concept governed the internal plan of the Homes, and survived – albeit in a modified way – until the 1970s. The Housemaster's sitting room and master bedroom were added later.

A household of some forty people requires an adequate supply of water. But the Homes were built on the top of a hill, and there was no piped public water supply until the 1960s. The problem was solved before building work began by sinking a well in the middle of what was to be Durham House kitchen, deep enough to reach the water-table below. It was this well, more than one hundred feet deep, which fascinated early visitors from the locality, invited in 1885 to see the building in progress. On Monday 13th April 1885, the Cholmondeley family, from Broadwell Rectory at Adlestrop, visited the Hill. The talented, witty, and incorrigibly idle undergraduate, Charles Fiennes Cholmondeley, son of Canon Henry Pitt Cholmondeley (the Cholmondeleys were evidently well connected) recorded in his diary:

The Cholmondeleys paid another visit to the Hill the following day.

Water Water

Later, after the Pump House was opened in 1909, all the water demands on the Hill were satisfied from the copious spring (once known as the Holy Well, or Holwell) close to Kingham Field Farm. This water had to be pumped up to the top of the Hill by using a powerful Crossley hot tube engine operating a triple ram pump. Because this was a diesel engine, it first needed to be warmed by a blow lamp; in times of emergency (for instance, when dealing with a fire in one of the Houses) it could be got going faster by burning old cloths soaked in paraffin, an operation at which Ernie Lovegrove became particularly skilled. When this massive water pump was removed (in the 1970s), it passed into private hands, was lovingly restored, and can still be seen from time to time in operation at Croughton. But I digress.

As soon as a pump was operating from the Holwell, the well in Durham kitchen floor was sealed by a massive stone slab, still (presumably) in place. Water to fill the four large baths had first to be drawn from the well, and then perhaps heated over the kitchen range; the baths were big enough to hold two (smallish) boys at once, and the water was no doubt re-used until it had ceased to be warm, effective or particularly hygienic. However, it is possible that a more technically efficient method of heating water was available from the start: by 1891, Kingham village rejoiced – I am sure this must be the correct word – in its own ‘Electrical, Gas and Hot Water Fitter (Home)` in the person of young George W Shepherd from Birmingham. When in the 1970s it was decided to remove the original boys' baths (they wasted too much hot water) it was found that they were too big to be taken out of the bathroom, and so had first to be broken up. By implication, they had been installed while the building was still in progress.

More on Water

The other logistical problem, especially in a large community, is sanitation. I do not know how this was resolved in those early days, but assume that they must have used earth closets.

Electricity

The Founder was originally attracted to the idea of providing electric lighting in the Homes. But apparently he was then told that an electric generator needed constant daily attendance, which meant that someone would have to work on Sunday. The Founder was a strict Sabbatarian: the electric generator was rejected, and the Homes were supplied with coal gas from a small gasworks at Daylesford House which did not require seven-day maintenance. There is evidence for this use of gas for lighting, and perhaps later for cooking, and the gas-piping survived in Durham House and elsewhere in the Homes. Alf Jarvis (op.cit. p.99, with annotation) refers to a ‘Gas House` opened in 1909, but does not say where it was situated. He was probably referring to the Meter House, a small building just inside the main entrance where the gas pipe entered the school and the gas consumption was measured. The gasworks themselves were in place at least by 1891 when they are recorded in the Daylesford census. Ernest Lainchbury (op. cit. p 323) writes about the gasworks. To speak of Daylesford Gasworks seems strange. I remember the gasworks very distinctly. They were built at the same time as Kingham Hill Homes and were for the purpose of supplying coal gas to the Homes. The gas main entered the Homes near the main entrance gates at the small building, hence its name ‘Meter House`. The gasworks were situated in the level enclosure half way between Daylesford Village Hall and Adlestrop Lodge on the main road. They were completely dismantled when the Homes went over to acetylene gas, which was generated on the Hill. Today [1957] the site of the gasworks is filled with thorn bushes and long rank grass.

This small level enclosure is later marked on the ordnance survey maps in antique writing as . Laying a gas main pipeline from Daylesford to the Hill must in itself have constituted a major engineering and constructional enterprise.

Meals

Meals were cooked on a range in the kitchen in the Home, and each of the rooms was equipped with a large stone fireplace. Welsh coal was readily available, brought by train to Sarsden Sidings, and thence by horse and cart to the top of the Hill, where it was stacked in a coal cellar attached to each Home. The Durham coal cellar was still in use in 1963, but then only for the housemaster's living-room fire. No doubt the coal fires in the big rooms were generously supplemented by logs from the Daylesford Estate. The house was equipped with a capacious north-facing room as a larder; in it, polished slate slabs were installed as shelving.

The Opening

According to Alf Jarvis (‘Fifty Years of Kingham Hill`, page 90) Durham House was opened on 14th September 1886. The Chipping Norton ‘Deanery Magazine` (Number 70, October 1886) recorded it as happening on 11th September, which, being a Saturday, is more probably the right day: We are sure that every one of our readers, whether in this parish or in neighbouring parishes, must very sincerely wish all prosperity and success to the “Home on Kingham Hill”, which was formally opened on September 11th . The proceedings were of the most quiet and un-ostentatious character, and were attended by a few of the more immediate neighbours, and some of the Daylesford villagers, who, after a short religious service, in the course of which an address was given by Mr Billing, Rector of Spitalfields, London, and the blessing of God asked upon the undertaking, inspected the various rooms and arrangements of the building, with the beauty and completeness of which they cannot have failed to be greatly impressed. That Mr Young may live to see many good results from this most excellent work, must be, we are sure, the hearty desire of all to whom he is in any way known

Two years later, the Revd Robert Claudius Billing was consecrated Bishop of Bedford, within the Diocese of London. He resigned his suffragan duties in 1895, but retained his title; no new Bishop of Bedford was appointed until 1935. Amongst those who attended the opening of Durham House were the Founder's mother, Elizabeth Young, his brother Arthur, sisters Caroline and Margaret, John Shrimpton, Claude Birch, Canon Cholmondeley of Broadwell and a few other friends.

Arthur and Emily Hamerton

Arthur and Emily Hamerton were chosen as the first house-parents for Durham House. Aged 41, Arthur Hamerton was a Londoner with a substantial ‘C. H. Spurgeon` style beard, was born in Brixton, and had recently been living in Camberwell. He had a family of four children – three sons and one daughter. The Founder cannot have been a bigoted Anglican, because his first house-parents were Baptists, and their Church membership was formally transferred to Chipping Norton Baptist Church in 1886. There is no evidence thereafter that this affiliation was anything more than a formality, and the Hamertons loyally committed themselves to the ethos of evangelical Christianity professed by the Founder and embodied in every part of life in the Homes. The matter of denominational commitment is exemplified in the case of Austin Scarsbrook, the Second Boy on the Hill, admitted 7th October 1886 (only a fortnight after the Founder had received the letters of application). Austin came from a Baptist family, and had therefore not been baptised as an infant. No doubt his mother's denominational allegiance was at first respected, but on 18th August 1900, when Austin was aged eleven, he and his younger brother, George, were baptised in the parish church at Kingham. One would hope that this was at their own request. In 1901 the Hamertons were still at Durham House. It is interesting that Mr and Mrs Hamerton and their sons, Charlie and Robin, were members of the Canadian Old Boys' Association in 1936. Charlie and Robin were amongst the early emigrants to Canada. General Henry Havelock, after whom the Canadian farm was named, was also a notable and evangelising Baptist, and it must have been his brand of muscular Christianity that commended him to the Founder. Denominational allegiance was irrelevant.

In 1887

In 1887, judging from the famous House Photograph, there were already thirty-six boys in the home, two of them very diminutive. They are all dressed in their Sunday best, which consisted of a waistcoat, a jacket, a small Eton collar, trousers or shorts as appropriate, boots and short stockings. The only curious feature is that all the boys are wearing round caps resembling berets or tam-o'-shanters, worn flat on the head. I do not know when this headgear was discontinued, but Kingham Hill traditionally never wore the otherwise ubiquitous school cap. In 1891 there were thirty-four boys in Durham House, ranging in age from five to fifteen. The fifteen-year old was Walter Balfour, the First Boy on the Hill. In 1901 there were thirty-three boys in Durham House – not many more than in the 1960s.