It has been 50 years since St Andrew’s Cathedral School moved into its permanent home of St Andrew’s House.
Many would dismiss our building as a simple office block much like any other. But for a School that was effectively migratory for its first 80 years, the prospect of this new building offered both stability and panic, as the future seemed uncertain.
Prior to 1976, St Andrew’s had spent several decades fundraising for a permanent home through the School Building Fund. This ‘new school’ was finally completed in 1965, providing a long-awaited sense of security and the promise of a permanent home. However, within a decade, the ‘new school’ was slated for demolition during the redevelopment of Sydney Square, with St Andrew’s House to be built on its bones. The Diocese had been planning a similar move since 1962, when a newspaper article described the first remodelling scheme.
At first, the School itself was not in danger of closing. St Andrew’s moved to the CENEF building during construction and was to occupy a vertical, top-to-bottom slice of what would become St Andrew’s House. The 1970 report to the commission noted that the School met the financial and educational requirements to remain and explicitly expressed the commission’s hope that the School would continue and develop on the site. However, the School was ejected from the plan in 1971 due to cost concerns. As moving the School away from the site was unaffordable, this was potentially disastrous.
Meanwhile, another question remained: what would the new building look like? Height was a recurring issue, with the pre-1970 plans being shot down over concerns about overshadowing the Cathedral. The need to avoid outshining the Cathedral is why today’s St Andrew’s House is so broad. Its pebbled surface was designed to resemble the sandstone of the neighbouring Cathedral and Town Hall. Other rejected ideas included an indoor pool, a rooftop plant room and apartment for rent within the building, alongside a verger’s apartment.
St Andrew’s House opened in 1976, drawing a crowd of thousands, including the Archbishop of Sydney, the Most Reverend Marcus Loane, and the Lord Mayor of Sydney, Leo Port.
St Andrew’s House opened in 1976, drawing a crowd of thousands, including the Archbishop of Sydney, the Most Reverend Marcus Loane, and the Lord Mayor of Sydney, Leo Port. The School moved onto the rooftop and into the seventh and eighth floors. Our tenuous existence was maintained by the 1979 Cathedral ordinance, which had an expiry date of 2016. The School therefore expanded beyond the building until the millennium, acquiring Kirrikee, our outdoor education centre in the Southern Highlands, in 1984 and the Bishop Barry Centre (BBC) in 1991.
The ordinance was extended in 2000, and Level 6 became available for lease, giving St Andrew’s a prime opportunity to expand. We took up residence on the sixth floor and established our first library in St Andrew’s House. Our spacious reception area was built on the ground floor in 2008, alongside the second library. Two years later, we claimed Level 5 and built the Heath Centre, a multipurpose space for exams and celebrations named after the much-loved Head of School, Mr Phillip Heath AM.
In 2011, our Science Centre expanded. Uneven flooring and plumbing made construction difficult, but the result was a lecture theatre and space for long-term experiments. The Music Centre underwent a similar renovation in 2015, with a focus on additional soundproof rooms, storage, rehearsal spaces and practice rooms. Additions included music programmes and server space for electronic music, as well as upgrades to the much-loved Fairfax Room.
The rooftop transformed with the School, starting with stone benches and real trees. There have been a wide array of accoutrements over the years, including cricket nets and baseball courts, along with slides, tunnels and fencing arenas. There was also the School amphitheatre, which became a Rooftop classroom and then the first Gawura classroom in 2007. We also acquired a chicken coop with had a massive upgrade in 2022: housing the School chickens, Teriyaki, Snitzel and Nugget.
Parents have regularly lent a hand, helping rejuvenate the rooftop in 2005, 2015 and 2022. It has also been a regular canvas for murals, painted in 1983, 1998, 2008 and, most recently, in 2024 by Gawura Graduates Sonny Green (OA2012) and Sadie Green (OA2023).
In 2018, we leased Level 4, now home to the Middle School library and much of our Middle School. In 2019, when the library was located to three different areas (Senior College, Junior School and Level 4), the ground floor was renovated into the large gym space and weights room we know today. Work on the new gym led to the rediscovery of a time capsule placed there in 1973, next to the foundation stone for St Andrew’s House. Our latest expansion came in 2024, when administration moved into half of Level 3 and professional staff settled into an open-plan office.
Despite early anxieties, St Andrew’s House has been a great blessing for the School, fulfilling the dream promised.
Despite early anxieties, St Andrew’s House has been a great blessing for the School, fulfilling the dream promised by the ‘new school’. With our tenure stable and the School’s continuing success, St Andrew’s House has earned its place alongside the Cathedral as one of the defining landmarks of School life, a prospect that once seemed far from certain.
Written by Mr Kelton Jarvis, Archivist (OA2012)
