No.128
The Trusty Servant
Flint Court 150 years on
Suzanne Foster, Archivist, marks an
anniversary:
It is easy to forget, in all the
celebrations to mark the 150 th
anniversary of the opening of our
boarding houses, that we should
also remember that 2019 marks 150
years since the closure of the one
large boarding house known as
Commoners, run by the headmaster
for his fee-paying pupils.
From 1739 to 1869, Commoners
lived first in old buildings west of
College known as Sustern Spital (Old
Commoners) and then in Moberly’s
New Commoners, built between 1829
and 1842. Once the new boarding
houses opened, the buildings known
as New Commoners in Flint Court
and Moberly Court were converted
into classrooms. By February 1870,
most of the new classrooms were
ready and, by April 1870, the new
Moberly Library had opened.
If you stand with your back to
Lord’s Tree and look at Flint Court,
Commoner Mugging Hall was on the
ground and first floors on the right
hand side, with the Grubbing Hall
opposite. There were dormitories
on the second floors and studies for
prefects around the edge of the court
yard. In Moberly Court, there were
more studies on the ground floor,
plus offices and kitchens, and more
dormitories above. The library, tutors’
rooms, sick rooms and matron’s room
were in the north range connecting
the two courtyards, with more
dormitories above.
The architect Butterfield was
commissioned to oversee the
conversion. He divided the larger
spaces into smaller classrooms, the
studies around the courtyards were
removed and the external look of the
15
buildings was improved to make them
look less like what had been described
as a ‘mean block that resembled a
cheap 19 th- century workhouse’.
Mugging Hall in 1860s
Commoner Studies in Moberly Court