The Old School

'The Blue Bung'

Old School, long known as ‘the Blue Bung’, lies near St John’s Cottages and shares much the same outlook. It is a small building of corrugated iron, with a snug interior lined with match boarding. Designed and made with care, it has, like many such buildings, considerable point and charm.

Before 1926, when Felix Gade became Mr Harman's agent on Lundy, the Old School was leased by Mrs Fotheringham.  For her the lean-to kitchen and the WC were added. Mrs Fotheringham was an elderly lady described by Mr Gade as 'a relic of the late Victorian era'. She did not do her own shopping but rather had the goods delivered to her front door.

She caused a stir when Mr Harman discovered that she was filing income tax returns and posting them from the island. He saw this as a threat to the island's independence and a dangerous precedent for the Inland Revenue Department which might well begin to charge all the islanders income tax (as they eventually did in 1974). Consequently Mrs Fotheringham was politely asked to leave.

Throughout the summer of 1949, Col. Harrison visited Lundy and from then on the Old School was let to him on a yearly tenancy. Nicknamed ‘Tubby’, he had a widely stocked drinks cabinet and was such a generous host that the School Bungalow became known as ‘The Red Lion’. After his death his ashes were scattered on the grass in front of his humble island home. The building was then repainted blue and became known as the Blue Bung under Mr Arthur Scudamore's tenancy. (Happily Mr Scudamore continued the tradition of the ‘Red Lion’ cocktail parties).

In 1955, Mr Albion Harman engaged a gardener called Dorothy Caldwell, whose arrival was somewhat inauspicious. There had been no ship for a week when ‘Fee’ appeared and to quote Mr Gade: 'in our need for essentials, it seemed very hard that we should instead have a lady gardener, garden tools, a one-eyed cat and about half a dozen Rex rabbits'. However, she soon gained his approval as she had very green fingers and worked hard sowing vegetables in the Old Hotel kitchen garden, now the picnic garden opposite the Tavern. Fee moved into the Blue Bung at Easter.

The year after Mrs Gade retired from managing the Hotel, the Gades retired for a few summers to the Blue Bungalow where they installed a gas stove. In 1976 Landmark rebuilt the kitchen extension and modernised the services. One of the interior partitions was removed and the whole was refurbished.