David Booth, Judith Ledeboer, John Pinckheard (1966)
Referred to by MCS students as “Big School”, this lozenge-shaped building is an assembly hall, performance space and chapel which overlooks The Plain, the gateway to east Oxford.
Big School is the only building in this collection that I know as well from the inside as I do from the outside – as our sons are MCS alumni. I can therefore tell you that the building is freezing in winter, and that the acoustics are terrible all year round.
(Despite that, of course it contains many happy memories of concerts, plays and prize giving ceremonies.)
The building sits neatly in a wedge-shaped space between Iffley Road and Cowley Place providing a large space overlooking both that serves as a useful advertising hoarding, just beneath the rather elegant stained glass windows.
I’ve no idea who owns the lichen-encrusted Land Rover that is always parked in Cowley Place; but it actually pre-dates the Big School building (but not the school – that was founded in 1480). Long may both of them prosper.
Address: Magdelen College School, Cowley Place, Oxford OX4 1DZ
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