230 
LIFE OF DEAN BUCKLAND. 
[CH. IX. 
Dukes and Earls in their boyish days ; the chairs scorched 
by many a fire and engraven deep with many a famous 
name.” 1 Again and again Dean Atterbury urged its 
rebuilding in the college gardens ; but the Canons pre¬ 
ferred that it should remain where it was, as their houses 
looked on the gardens. It was only by the casting vote 
of the Dean that a motion was carried in favour of re¬ 
building the dormitory over the wide cloister which 
extended along the gardens’ western side. 
Buckland found that Dean Atterbury’s dormitory, after 
over a hundred years’ use as bedroom, sitting-room, and 
play-room, was in a most dismal condition,—with the 
walls blackened by smoke, and, here and there, hung with 
moth-eaten green baize curtains ; the tables and lockers 
seamed and scarred in all directions, and the floor- 
Taking his children to see the place,their father asked, “Well, 
children, what’s this floor like ? ” The answer was prompt. 
“ The fossil ripple marks in our hall at home.” (A fossil 
slab of ripple marks now in the Oxford Museum.) The 
floor was only cleaned once a year, so that its rough 
surface was not to be wondered at, as the boys did a great 
deal of cooking there amongst their other diversions. 
The windows were prison-like, small and near the ceiling. 
Mr. F. H. Forshall, the School chronicler, relates that, fifty 
years ago, “ as a rule, the windows were kept broken and 
a slide was sometimes formed down college in a time of 
hard frost. On one occasion the floor was converted into 
a draught board ; the Under Flections formed the pieces, and 
Dean Stanley’s “ Memorials of Westminster. 
