Back in the day, as our boys like to say, it was a custom among the lads and ladies of Wiltshire to while away the hours playing "pooh sticks", a game in which they raced twigs floating downstream...for hours! This custom was such a beloved afternoon diversion that as youth grew up into adult men and women, they were often spotted courting along the babbling brooks, dreamily watching sticks drift by. As the years ensued and they became parents, and even later grandparents, they would walk with their loved ones after Sunday lunch, as the next generation continued playing the game.
Legend has it that Sir Christopher Wren, the greatest architect of his day, was such a lad growing up, and when a London attorney asked him to build a school at Salisbury Cathedral, he jumped at the chance to revisit a happy scene from his childhood.
Two centuries later, it is almost certain that the author A. A. Milne was much moved by the fine memorial chapel that was built to honor the students who fell in the Great War. Seeking consolation, he wandered out to play pooh sticks on the River Avon, and was inspired to commemorate this idle past time by telling stories bout his teddy, "Winnie", in his world-famous books.
That is the strange but true connection between the Winnie "the Pooh" and Christopher Wren. (Where did you think the name Christopher Robin came from anyway?)
(We let the historical record speak for itself. From the Sarum College Web site)
The oldest part of Sarum College is the main building at the front of the site which was built in 1677. Attributed to Sir Christopher Wren, it was built for Francis Hill, a distinguished London lawyer and Deputy Recorder for Salisbury. He chose a particularly striking site, at the north end of Bishop’s Walk, facing directly down to the Bishop’s Palace, now the Cathedral School.
The establishment of the theological college in 1860 began with a gift. Walter Kerr Hamilton, Bishop of Salisbury used an anonymous donation to buy the house (then no. 87) from Miss Charlotte Wyndham – and the first students arrived in January 1861.
In the 1870s William Butterfield, foremost church architect of his day, and best-known for Keble College, Oxford, was commissioned to add a residential wing to provide accommodation for students, and then, in 1881, a chapel and library.
In 1937 further extensions designed by William Randall Blacking were added, study bedrooms for students and a meeting room that became the new library and is now the Common Room.
Eight students of Salisbury Theological College were killed in the Great War (1914 -18), and a fine memorial in the Chapel records their names.
During the Second World War (1939 – 45) the College was taken over by the women of the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women’s branch of the British Army, and Queen Mary paid them a visit. Apparently the creepers which covered the front of the building were hastily removed, as the old Queen did not like them!
