The main hall of the recently restored old grammar school ( SP3379 : The Old Grammar School ). The black wooden stalls, believed to date from the 15th century, were former choir stalls in Whitefriars monastery, where the school endowed by John Hales was first located and came here with the move of the school. They display several examples of 17th and 18th century schoolboy carved graffiti.
The medieval sandstone building was formerly the chapel of the Hospital of St John, founded in the 12th century and rebuilt in the 14th century. The hospital was dissolved in 1545 (Dissolution of the Monasteries) and purchased by John Hales who undertook to provide a school which remained here until moving to a new building in Warwick Road in 1885.
The building that this mosaic SP3379 : Mosaic detail in Cov Centre. decorates was originally the Locarno ballroom, hence the jolly design. The artist was Fred Millet.