Heritage furniture for the new sixth form centre at Downside School
One of our recent projects – the new sixth form centre at Downside School outside Bath – holds a special place in my heart as it is my old school. Originally founded in Douai, France, in 1606, the school was relocated to Somerset in 1821 by the community of St Gregory the Great, a group of Benedictine monks. Over time, a whole host of eminent architects have worked on the school buildings including Henry Goodridge; Charles Hansom and his son Edward; Archibald Dunn; Leonard Stokes and Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. Many of them also worked on the adjacent abbey, begun in 1873 and now considered one of England’s great neo-Gothic minor basilicas – Sir Nikolaus Pevsner described it as ‘the most splendid demonstration of the renaissance of Roman Catholicism in England’. Of particular relevance are the site’s 1960s additions: an octagonal library and monastery refectory wing built by brutalist architect and fellow old boy (Old Gregorian) Francis Pollen.
The Pollen wing has three storeys: the school refectory and, above it, the monks’ refectory and guest wing. To us pupils, the building, with its unornamented bulk and concrete beams, always seemed at odds with the carved stone of the abbey and the rest of the school. Even today, some 60 years on, it is only just beginning to ‘settle in’ and to be accepted for what I now realise it is – a masterpiece of proportion, detailing and simplicity. Pollen’s use of repeating bays, huge glass windows and pared-back, minimalist design is extremely pure and utterly beautiful – to be in that cloister with sunlight shafting through and the music of the abbey organ drifting on the air is an unforgettable experience.
I was delighted then, and humbled, when the school asked us to reimagine the monks' refectory and cloister as a sixth form centre, enabled by the last of the remaining monks having moved to Buckfast Abbey in 2022. I know from my own time at the school that Downside aims nurture the talents and passions of its students, and I felt immediately that what was needed was a grown-up, aspirational space that would act as a launch pad to university. It needed to be a place to work and study as well as to relax, and it needed to bridge the school’s two very different architectural styles. Most importantly, I felt it needed to capture and reflect the school’s spirituality and identity.
As with every project, there were constraints. The timeline was just six months – incredibly tight for a commission of this scale – and, since the building is Grade I-listed, everything had to be freestanding; we couldn’t put a single screw in a wall. It goes without saying too, that the furniture needed to be robust. When you’ve got 1st XV rugby players flinging themselves down on a bench year after year, you’ve got to know it can take it!
A couple of years earlier, Claire and I had been lucky enough to have a private tour of the monastery sacristy, designed by Frederick Walters just after the turn of the century, which was a huge privilege. I could see and touch all the original panelling and furniture (all still in perfect condition) and decided to take that as my starting point. The students had told us that they loved the classical feel of Downside which they felt was an important part of the school's identity, so I took inspiration from the sacristy to achieve something that would fit with the Pollen building and which was at once contemporary and timeless.
The sixth form centre incorporates a number of different areas. First is a study area where generous oak tables intended for revision or essay writing are complemented, on the other side of the room, by high desks and Huckleberry’s circular ‘Polo’ stools looking out over the abbey. I’m particularly fond of the study tables with the little ceramic and bakelite light switches that we incorporated. The lights help zone the space, and the switches add a really lovely analogue touch.
The next area is a large space incorporating larger ‘huddle tables’ and benches for project work, and upholstered seating for relaxation. It’s also home to a full-size snooker table, donated to the school, alongside which we’ve designed a bench on a raised podium. The idea for this came from the Chelsea Arts Club, where the simple act of elevating the seating means snooker can become a lively spectator sport – just as it now has at Downside.
The tables and benches are adaptations of our Kilifi design (which works both inside and in the garden) and are modular, handy for when the room needs to be reconfigured for seminars, lectures or for when the building is used by other groups and organisations in the holidays. In the same way, different areas are screened with freestanding panels, made of traditional oak boards with chamfered posts. Each is topped with a pointed, square-sided finial – a version of the finials I spotted on the vesting benches in the sacristy.
It’s been a real honour to be involved with this project, and quite a responsibility too. It’s humbling to think that the furniture could well be here in a couple of hundred years or so – our furniture is designed to last that long. More poignantly though, I know that being in this room with their friends is something that the students are going to remember for years to come.
If you have a project you would like to talk to us about, please contact us at +44 (0)1458 570110 or info@homeofhuckleberry.com.
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