History in Keele Buildings

Nissen Huts from Library Names really matter - and the names of our buildings carry a great significance for Keele.

There are a few rooms named after benefactors and donors but our buildings are are mostly named after people who have a special association with Keele, the locality or the founding ideals of the University....

Photo left: Old and New - a classic view of the Walter Moberly Hall (left), Tawney Building (beyond) and The Huts (everywhere!) from the Library roof

 


Keele Hall

Keele Hall Old Postcard Keele Hall is a 19th-century mansion house and is a Grade II listed building. The manor of Keele was held by the Sneyd family continuously from 1540 to 1948. A large gabled Tudor style house was built on the hill in 1580. In 1650 Colonel Ralph Sneyd fought on the Royalist side in the English Civil War and was killed. The family’s fortunes fluctuated, with a brief heyday in the 18th century when a Sneyd commanded the Royal bodyguard at Buckingham Palace. The family’s history can be partly traced in the heraldic devices on the walls, including one commemorating a battle honour awarded against the French at Poitiers in 1356.

In the 19th century the family prospered as landowners, coal and iron owners and also brick and tile manufacturers. The original house was remodelled several times and finally replaced entirely between 1851 and 1860 with the present Keele Hall. The celebrated Victorian architect Anthony Salvin, who also worked on the renovations at Windsor Castle, Alnwick castle and the Houses of Parliament, designed an imposing building in mock Jacobean style. The three-storeyed castellated entrance front has four octagonal turrets and the other fronts have curved gables. The eastern façade overlooks sweeping lawns down to an ornamental lake, arboretum and extensive woodlands, which were landscaped by William Emes in the 18th century.

Image right: Keele Hall in a postcard by W Shaw's of Burslem (c. 1905)

In 1900 Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich of Russia rented Keele Hall. He had undertaken a morganatic marriage against the will of his cousin, the Tsar Alexander III of Russia, and spent the rest of his life in exile in England, France and Germany. During his ten years at Keele the Grand Duke adopted the lifestyle of an English country gentleman and on one occasion welcomed King Edward VII, the first ruling monarch to visit Keele. The town council of Newcastle-under-Lyme conferred on Grand Duke Michael the honour of Lord High Steward of the Borough.

Keele Hall was requisitioned by the army during World War II and was occupied by British and American troops before becoming a refugee camp. In 1948 the Keele estate was purchased from another Colonel Ralph Sneyd for the establishment of the University College of North Staffordshire, which opened in 1950 and in 1962 became Keele University. Teaching took place in Keele Hall as late as 2003, when Philosophy and English finally left for more functional and less Hogwartian surroundings

Walter Moberly Building

Walter Moberly (1881-1974) was a British academic who, as Chairman of the University Grants Committee, played a significant role in the creation of the institution that later became Keele University. Moberly began his academic career as a lecturer in political science at the University of Aberdeen. He then served with distinction in the Great War and joined the University of Birmingham as Professor of Philosophy. He later became Principal of the University College of the South West of England and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Manchester, before joining the University Grants Committee in 1935. Moberly was hugely supportive of Lord Lindsay’s experimental vision for a new kind of university, enabling Lindsay to found the University College of North Staffordshire in 1950 – which became Keele University in 1962. Walter Moberly Hall Interior This building was originally opened as the Conference Hall, the venue for lectures, plays, concerts and many other events requiring a large auditorium. It was an essential element of the  Keele experiment where the entire student body in the Foundation Year could gather en masse for lectures - and also participate in the sociail and cultural activities of the community of scholars. It was converted into offices and teaching spaces and renamed the Walter Moberly Building during the 1980s.

Left: Photo of Walter Moberly Hall interior by John Gillis (Class of 1962)

The Huts

The Keele estate has welcomed many distinguished visitors but during the 1940s most of the occupants of Keele Hall were not here by choice. British troops arrived at Keele Hall during 1940 and an army base was built to house troops evacuated from Dunkirk. They gradually rejoined their units as they re-formed or underwent further training. It is believed that battlefield communications by radio were tested between Keele hill and Mow Cop. By 1944 the original and shoddy British huts were supplemented by more substantial temporary buildings to housed America troops waiting to be sent to Normandy after D-Day. By the end of the war, over 120 temporary buildings were scattered across the bare and windswept hilltop while Keele Hall itself took a battering from the army boots of its less-than-careful occupants. Bungalow 2009 After the Second World War, the camp was converted again as accommodation for refugees and displaced persons from war-torn Europe. Among these was a Polish woman who was murdered on her way back to camp from Newcastle - her murder in 1948 was never solved and the perpetrator never identified. This is the only murder known to have occurred within the precincts of the Keele estate. In 1950 the new University College of North Staffordshire (from 1962, Keele University) opened and the army huts provided rough-and-ready but remarkably warm and comfortable accommodation for staff and students. More military buildings were adapted for educational use while two large Nissen Huts became the home of the new Students’ Union and Chapel. Another draughty hut, known as the RAF Hut, became a refectory. It was later renamed by a student graffiti artist as the “Frank Godfer Hall”, in imitation of the University motto inherited from the Sneyd family: “Thanke God for All”. Some of the more robust huts continued as student residences into the 1970s while many more remained as offices, workshops and storage well into the 1980s. Gradually all but two were replaced by permanent buildings. The only two survivors are two brick “huts” - now called The Bungalows - which survive as reminders of the pioneering days at Keele. These must have served a hundred different uses over the decades but one is currently used for teacher training and the other is used to teach Foundation Year students.

Photo above: The Bungalow 2009 by Stan Beckensall (Founding Class of 1954)

William Smith Building

This building is named after not one, but two William Smiths, both of whom were influential in the development of mapping.
William Smith (1546?-1618) laid the foundations of the conventions of county mapping and of urban cartography. Smith was an antiquarian and Rouge Dragon at the College of Heralds whose work, ‘The Particuler Description of England. With the portratures of certaine of the cheiffest citties and townes’, made an important contribution to cartography of the time.
William Smith (1769-1839) is credited with creating the first nationwide geological map. While working as a miner, Smith noted the patterns in strata of rock, leading to a lifelong fascination. He developed a way of displaying the horizontal extent of rocks, which eventually led to his ‘Map that Changed the World’.

The Clock House

Clock House Vintage Photo The Clock House was built in the early 1830s to provide stables, carriage stores and residences for the coachman and head gardener. A new road was built through a Romantic landscaped Gorge. A new drive led southwest past Keele Park Racecourse opened by Col Ralph Sneyd in 1899. Sneyd converted the block into breeding stables for racehorses until Keele Park folded in 1906. In the 1920s he converted the residences to provide lodgings during his infrequent visits. On 28th October 1970 about 300 students carried out a bizarre protest at the Clock House. They surrounded and attempted to levitate the building 300 feet into the air by psychic power and the force of their “spiritual unity”. In those heady days some averred that they managed to raise the building “about six feet, give or take six feet.” The building now houses the Music School and the Vice-Chancellor's residence.

Why does the clock in the Clock House have no hands?

Photo right: The Clock House in a vintage photo

Colin Reeves Building

Professor Colin Reeves is a former Head of Computer Science at Keele, who was a prominent figure at the University throughout the 70s and 80s. Colin was Keele’s first Professor of Computer Science, following a career in the chemical industry and a spell as a programmer on one of the first industrial computers. He has a long association with the British Computer Society, rising to become a moderator and then Chairman of the BCS Examinations Board. Through his influential work in curriculum design, he was asked to work with the Universities Grants Commission of Sri Lanka and recommend a plan to introduce computing into the university system. As a result of the Reeves Report, Colin was able to initiate Keele’s longstanding relationship with Sri Lanka.

Claus Moser Research Centre

Lord Moser was Keele’s second Chancellor, who held the office between 1986 and 2002. Claus Moser is a statistician who has made major contributions in academic life and in the Civil Service. His academic career was spent at the London School of Economics, where he had been a student. He held a variety of posts at LSE and was awarded a Chair in Social Statistics in 1961. In 1967, Harold Wilson appointed him Director of the Central Statistical Office, a post he held until 1978. He was made a Knight Commander of the Bath in 1973 and a Life peer with the title, Baron Moser of Regents Park, in 2001. He has a wide variety of other honours to his name, from Britain, France and his native Germany.

Science Learning Centre

In 2004 Keele University was selected to be part of the £51m initiative by the Department for Education and Skills and the Wellcome Trust to create a national network of Science Learning Centres. The Science Learning Centre West Midlands is one of nine regional centres across the country, providing professional development opportunities to all science educators in the region. The aim is to bring "cutting edge science" from higher education and industry to the classroom and to increase innovation and creativity in ways that will revitalise science education in the West Midlands. The building was officially opened by the Minister of State for Higher Education and Lifelong Learning, Bill Rammell, in October 2005.

Sports Centre

Sports 1950 When the University College of North Staffordshire opened in 1950 no sporting facilities existed. The Director of Sport Hank Haley was not deterred and demanded that all students must participate in a recognised sport. An Athletic Union was formed and students improvised or borrowed neighbouring facilities. The refectory (now Keele Hall Ballroom) once hosted a major fencing tournament and long corridors in the Chemistry Block were equipped with hurdles to enable a promising athlete to train. Haley’s vision was fulfilled in 1964 when the Sports Centre was opened. The building has been extended and adapted continually to provide training and competitive areas for many sports, both indoors and on outdoor pitches and playing fields.

Photo right: Sports 1950s-style - no sports building but keen pioneer students and athletes Dion Webb (1957), Keith Clement (1956) and Stuart Milner (1957) make the most of heir talent!

Students’ Union Building

New Union Building The Students’ Union first occupied a Nissen Hut left over from the military occupation of Keele during the Second World War. The present building was opened in 1962 by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, President and Chancellor of the University (1956-1986). It revelled in its progressive 1960s architectural style; its wide open interiors were decked in white pine and an open staircase bisected the building. The exterior was described as resembling a Mississippi steamboat. It was originally intended to be the first of two identical buildings side-by-side “like a catamaran” but the second building never materialised. An extension was added in the 1970s and the interior re-modelled during 2011-2012.

Photo left: New Union Building by Graham Fisher (Class of 1965)

Darwin Building

The Darwin Building was opened by Sir Roy Griffiths in December 1992. It was the second stage of Keele's Science Park development after the Stephenson Building. Naturalist Charles Darwin was a frequent visitor to North Staffordshire and married his cousin Emma Wedgwood at St Peter’s Church in nearby Maer on 29 January 1839. His early thoughts on earthworms evolved in the grounds of Emma’s family home Maer Hall and he is said to have spent many hours walking in the surrounding hills. His grandfathers, physician and thinker Erasmus Darwin and potter Josiah Wedgwood, were prominent members of Staffordshire society. Josiah Wedgwood V, the potter’s great-great-great-grandson, was a founder member of the University’s Council and Court of Governors, and is commemorated by an avenue of 20 silver willows close to the Darwin Building.

Hornbeam Building

The Hornbeam building is named after the magnificent hornbeam tree which is outside the building. It is rumoured that the Founding Professor of Geography, Stanley Beaver, had the plans for the building altered to accommodate the tree. The hornbeam is native to the South East of England. It is usually conic in shape but older trees can spread into a high dome. The bark is lead-grey and smooth except for a network of diffuse stripes of paler grey or brown, separated by darker fissures. The branches all tend to be very long, giving the tree the appearance of an old-fashioned broom or besom.
Hornbeam is frequently used as hedging. After box, it is the hardest of native woods, and was formerly used for ox-yokes, cog wheels for water and wind mills, and for piano keys.

Jack Ashley Building

Jack Ashley (1922-2012) was MP for Stoke-on-Trent South for 26 years, from 1966 to 1992. In December 1967, Ashley lost his hearing as a result of complications from a routine operation to correct a perforated eardrum. He was persuaded to retain his seat in the House of Commons, electing instead to take a crash course in lip reading. He thus became the first totally deaf MP. Ashley was a lifelong campaigner for the disabled, especially the deaf and blind. He led high profile campaigns, including the campaign for improved compensation for victims of thalidomide, vaccine damage and damage done by the arthritis drug, Opren. In 1986, he and his wife founded the charity Defeating Deafness. Following his retirement from Parliament in 1992, Ashley was made Baron Ashley of Stoke.

Lennard-Jones Laboratory and Building

Sir John Lennard-Jones (1894–1954) was a mathematician who some regard as the initiator of modern computational chemistry. Lennard-Jones is well known for his work on molecular structure, valency and intermolecular forces. His theories of liquids and of surface catalysis also remain influential. He was the UK’s first Professor of Theoretical Chemistry, at Cambridge University, having previously been Professor of Theoretical Physics at Bristol University. The research school that he founded at Cambridge attracted many of the UK’s leading scientists and mathematicians. The Royal Society of Chemistry awards the Lennard-Jones Medal and hosts the Lennard-Jones lecture each year. The Lennard-Jones potential is also named after him – the description of the potential energy as a function of the separation of atoms. Sir John succeeded Lord Lindsday as the second Principal of the University College of North Staffordshire in 1952 but he passed away only two years leter.

Tawney Building

Tawney Building 2009 Richard Henry Tawney (1880-1962) was an economic historian, social critic and proponent of adult education, whose writings had a profound influence on Lord Lindsay, the founder of Keele University. Tawney spent much of his early career teaching at the Workers’ Educational Association, combining his work with his pioneering efforts to bring about major social change. From 1905 to 1948, he served on the Workers’ Educational Association Executive, holding the offices of Vice-President (1920-1928; 1944-1948) and President (1928-1944). He also served on the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education (1912-1931), the Education Committee of the London County Council and the University Grants Committee. Lord Lindsay was inspired by Tawney’s writings which led to the creation of the ‘Keele experiment’, which began life as the University College of North Staffordshire in 1950.

Photo: Tawney Building taken in 2009 by Stan Beckensall (Class of 1954)

William Emes Building

William Emes (1729?-1803) was a renowned landscape gardener who created the beautiful gardens at Keele Hall. The early details of Emes’ life are not known, but by 1756 he was working on Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, at the behest of Sir Nathaniel Curzon. Emes quickly developed an excellent reputation as a landscape gardener, his style being similar to that of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown. The main features of his designs were trees and water. The gardens at Keele Hall, for example, have eight lakes and tens of thousands of trees. Emes designed gardens all over England and Wales, predominantly in the Midlands. He worked on Keele Hall between 1768 and 1770, bringing his signature parkland style to the Sneyd estate.
In later life, he moved to the South of England, working extensively in Hampshire. He died in London in 1803.

The University Library

Library under construction Eminent architect Sir Howard Robertson was engaged to design the Library. The Library follows no particular style of architecture, but was designed to fit in with the overall style of the campus. The height was limited by the need for anti-subsidence measures, which also included special foundation work and slip-joints in certain areas. So there is no truth in the old chestnut that the ‘Library is sinking!’ By 1961, the first two phases of the construction were complete. At this point, the Library held around 200,000 volumes and over 300 readers. The building was officially opened in October 1962. Over the ensuing 50 years, the Library has undergone regular changes and updates in appearance, function and personnel. It has grown along with the University – in 1962, there were an estimated 98,000 visits; in 2012, that figure is well over 700,000. The Library had a number of previous homes, including the Great Hall of Keele Hall in the early years. An exhibition of the history of the Library produced for the 2012 Charter Anniversary is here.

Photo: Library under construction - Alan Self (Class of 1961)

 

Sir David Weatherall Building

Sir David Weatherall was Chancellor of Keele University, succeedng Lord Claus Moser in 2002 and holding office until 2012. Sir David made a considerable and significant contribution to Keele, including presiding over the graduation of the first students to graduate from the School of Medicine – a subject close to his heart. Sir David is one of the outstanding British clinician scientists of his generation - a pioneering researcher in molecular genetics, haematology, pathology and clinical medicine. He was Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford, 1992-2000. In 1989, Sir David founded the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine at Oxford University to foster research in molecular and cell biology with direct application to the study of human disease. Sir David is also co-author of the Oxford Text Book of Medicine.

Home Farm

Home Farm was originally built in 1833 during the extensive landscaping works carried out by Ralph Sneyd, shortly after he inherited the estate from his father. Home Farm was a ‘model farm’. The first model farms were built in the 1790s during the reign of George III. The architecture and layout of model farms were designed to enable agricultural experimentation and improvement. In Staffordshire and Cheshire this included increasing dairy output by feeding cattle higher quality fodder.  Home Farm is fairly unusual as it was one of only 20 built in the 1830s and is actually older than the current Keele Hall. It was a fine example of a model farm and its renovation for the Keele Hub for Sustainability preserves many of the original features. There is an extensive History of Home Farm here.


The University Chapel

Chapel under Construction Keele University Chapel is the UK’s first religious building designed specifically to accommodate services by different Christian traditions. Although there were many precedents in terms of shared space and facilities, Keele Chapel is thought to be the first building designed specifically with ecumenical considerations at the forefront. Architect George Pace was appointed to design the University’s first permanent chapel in 1958. Students at what was then the University College of North Staffordshire previously worshipped in Keele Hall and then in a large Nissen hut remaining from its wartime role as a military base. In 1959 representatives from 10 European countries and the USA met at The Ecumenical Institute of the World Council of Churches to consider the architectural implications of closer co-operation between the denominations and churches. They hammered out a 13-point statement which Pace then used when preparing his plans for a multi-denominational chapel at Keele. Pace saw that ecumenical relations could affect the way that places of worship were laid out internally. More than anything he saw the need for buildings capable of keeping options open. He set out to design a building where ‘organic development could take place without the great cost of structural alterations or causing violent disruption to a carefully wrought interior.’ The Chapel is also used for concerts, Graduation Ceremonies and examinations as well as for other public events. The exterior of the Chapel was designed to be ‘austere, highly disciplined and timeless.’ Originally intended to be faced with sandstone, the generous gift of industrial-style bricks of the University’s choice from the Berry Hill Brick Company resulted in the Chapel’s construction in a striking blue Staffordshire brick. Improvements were made to the access and parterre outside the Chapel in September 2012 to match the new development of Union Square.  Photo above: Chapel under construction - Graham Fisher (Class of 1965)

Dorothy Hodgkin Building

Dorothy Mary Hodgkin, OM, FRS (1910-1994) was a British chemist, credited with the development of protein crystallography. She advanced the technique of X-ray crystallography, a method used to determine the three dimensional structures of biomolecules. Among her most influential discoveries are the confirmation of the structure of penicillin that Ernst Boris Chain and Edward Abraham had previously surmised, and then the structure of vitamin B12, for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964. She is regarded as one of the pioneer scientists in the field of X-ray crystallography studies of biomolecules.

Hawthorns Hall
Hawthorns Hall is named after the large house that still stands on the site in the village of Keele. The house was acquired in 1954 to accommodate twelve students when the existing provision proved insufficient. The existing residence blocks began to be added from 1964 onwards. In 1968 the “Hawthorns Experiment” proved successfully that students could take responsibility for their own discipline and this was extended gradually to all residences. There is a long association between the Keele estate and village and the medieval crusading order known as the Knights Templar. The Hawthorns Bar is named Templar Bar to reflect this heritage.

Lindsay Hall
Lindsay Hall takes its name from Lord A D “Sandie” Lindsay of Birker (1879-1952), the founder and first Principal of the University College of North Staffordshire, which became Keele University in 1962. Lindsay was master of Balliol College, Oxford,  and a prominent political philosopher and educationalist. He was a major figure in the adult education movement, and first got to know North Staffordshire during his visits to the Potteries to teach industrial workers. In 1938, Lindsay stood for Parliament in the famous Oxford by-election on the single issue of opposition to appeasement and this galvanised preparations to confront Adolf Hitler. His principles led to the creation of the idealistic and innovative “Keele experiment”, a new kind of university where a community of scholars - both staff and students living together on a single campus - would live together to develop new approaches to inter-disciplinary education and education for democracy. The Keele programme comprised a broad-based Foundation Year for all undergraduate students, and introduced the concept of dual honours degrees. The first Lindsay Hall was a collection of wartime army huts for female students only. The first permanent buildings were begun in 1954 - Sneyd House and Harrowby House - and the residence blocks and Hexagon were added in the 1960s.

Horwood Hall
Horwood Hall takes its name from Alderman Rev Thomas Horwood, Vicar of Etruria and leader of the Labour group on Stoke-on-Trent City Council. His influence and political skill enabled the acquisition in 1949 of the Keele estate for the establishment of the University College of North Staffordshire, which became keele University in 1962. Horwood’s significance is reflected in the fact that his is the only picture among a collection of portraits in Keele Hall who is not a former Principal or Vice-Chancellor. He famously secured the sale of the estate from Colonel Ralph Sneyd by popping the question at a horse race just as one of Sneyd’s horses won, exploiting the tone of goodwill essential to clinch the deal. The first Horwood Hall was a collection of war-time army huts occupied by male students only. The permanent buildings were begun in the early 1960s and the present KPA Clubhouse was originally the Warden’s home. The tower block was originally meant to be taller but changes to planning rules on the instalaltion of lifts meant that the original plan was no longer viable and it was finished at eight floors.

Barnes Hall
Barnes Hall takes its name from Sir George Barnes (1904-1960), the third Principal of the University College of North Staffordshire from 1956 to 1960. He was a pioneer in British broadcasting, becoming the first Controller of the BBC Third Programme (now Radio 3) in 1946. In 1950 he became Director of BBC Television. He retired from the BBC in 1956 to become the principal of the University College, which became Keele University in 1962. Barnes hall was built in the early 1970s at the same time as a new Ring Road was constructed to encircle the central core of the campus. One block had to be demolished in 1978 due to subsidence but new blocks were added in the 1990s and 2000s.

Holly Cross & The Oaks
The land on which the Keele estate lies was a gift to the mediaeval crusading order known as the Knights Templar in around 116p by King Henry II. The Templar Cross marked locations where the privilege of the order prevailed and the name partly reflects this heritage. It also recognises the nearby mediaeval Holly Hedge, a listed monument  which once reached the height of 70 feet. Holly Cross and the Oaks were built in the 1990s.

Sneyd Arms (Old Postcard) More Buildings will be added soon... along with the most famous off campus building - the Sneyd Arms in Keele village - as seen in this old postcard!

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