£3.5 million Award for Cedars Development

Wells Cathedral School has just received some fantastic news relating to its current building projects. The government has awarded the school a total grant of £3,500,000 from its Standards and Diversity Targeted Capital Fund to enable the school to move forward with its construction projects – the new classrooms in the LaundryGardens site, and Cedars Hall as part of the Cedars Development project.

It has been anticipated that the government will pay £1,000,000 of this grant later this term or early in the New Year; a further £1,000,000 during the financial year 2009-10, starting in April 2009; and the remaining £1,500,000 during the 2010-11 financial year.

The grant has been given following a recent application by the school to the government Fund, and awarded as a result of the school’s continued excellence in music, sustained academic success and commitment to ‘whole person education’.

Head, Elizabeth Cairncross said “We have received this money because we already have a reputation for sharing what we have, and for being a good model of the way a school community can be. This award comes with a huge responsibility – not only to use it well and carefully and wisely in the buildings we design and build, but to use those buildings in a way which justifies the grant that we have received for them, both in sharing them with the wider community and the wider world, and in making sure that when people learn in them they are learning and developing skills and talents which will enrich their lives, and the lives of others.”

Cedars Hall, the new music learning and performance facility will contain a technically-excellent recital hall and inter-connected flexible spaces for teaching, rehearsing, performing and recording for students and teachers. Sited in The Cedars estate, the Georgian heart of the school, Cedars Hall will lie on the historically significant axis with Wells Cathedral’s Chapter House, and both share the function of gathering spaces for the local and regional community. The classrooms are planned for the Laundry Gardens site, again, very much in the heart of the school, and will both extend resources and replace much loved and worn out temporary rooms.

The Head added “We are particularly delighted that this award comes at the start of our 1,100 year Anniversary, and provides us with an extra cause for celebration. The award is a true endorsement of our commitment to ‘an inspiring education in a musically alive and beautiful environment as a brilliant foundation for life’ and is a key building block in our dreams for the future of the school. This wonderful news enables us to continue with our strong fundraising campaign for the classrooms, for Cedars Hall, for the new sports pavilion and for new maintenance buildings, and for bursaries. We will be focusing on all these things in the coming months and years; the government’s support and approval helps us all on our way!”

Architechts' impression of the new Cedars Hall