St. Andrew's College, Grahamstown

Sinjhun Cawse (2023) St. Andrew's College is an Anglican high school for boys located in Makhanda (Grahamstown), Eastern Cape province of South Africa.

The St Andrews Clock tower, found at the centre of the school, was designed as a memorial to those Old Andreans who had died in the first world war.

[2] The foundation stone of the new chapel was laid by the Rt Revd Charles Cornish, bishop of Grahamstown on St. Andrew's Day, 1905, the jubilee year of the college.

But chiefly owing to lack of funds the stone remained built into a buttress at the back of Espin Cottage, and no start was made until 1913 when the building was begun on plans by Messrs. Herbert Baker & Kendall of Cape Town.

The design for the new chapel is in the early Gothic manner, but in order to suit the comparatively sunny climate of the Eastern Cape, there is just that suggestion of Italian treatment which prevents it from being a direct copy of an English type.

The chancel has an apsidal east end, and is to be covered by a groined roof constructed in concrete, the sanctuary windows being kept high in such a way as to cut into the semi-circular line of the vault in an effective manner.

At the west end the-baptistry is placed projecting westward of the wall and forming a semi-circular recess, which is to be covered with a grained ceiling.

Springing from the projecting baptistry are buttresses which are carried up with diminishing outline and form a picturesque bell cote to terminate the west end of the roof.

In 2019 the school also implemented the Cambridge Assessment International Education A-Level curriculum as an alternative syllabus to the IEB.

St. Andrew's College clock tower, built in 1923
St. Andrew's Chapel Pen and ink drawing on a hard board by Amitabh Mitra
A general plan showing the layout of the school building and fields as drawn by the architectural practice of Sir Herbert Baker
Chapel, St Andrew's College, Somerset Street, Grahamstown