1930s Penn House Boys - Authors of 'Chronicle 24'

In the paper already!

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/localnews/Former-Rowntree-home-will-open.6326879.jp

The Body

WE ARE ALL MEMBERS OF THE SAME BODY. That is the motto Penn House once belonged to. Now the severed limb of Bootham School stands alone as its own body. An entity of art. The theme behind the oPenn House exhibition is of the house being like a body, an idea that is common in African Tribes, and one we have adopted. As you enter and move around the beautiful space, the parts and organs will be represented by the themes of art within each room. Some may be obvious, some a little less so, but art is all about interpretation - there is no right or wrong answer.

Update

We had a great meeting today, and really cracked on with our ideas about the exhibition/event. We want to present to you the house... as it is, as it was and what it stands to mean.
Tomorrow we are allowing a photographer into our home - who will use the location for a shoot - utilising the character filled basement. The empty cellars will be filled with models: a taster for what is to come. I wonder how the house will feel about the impending invasion...? More to follow on the results...

Stories of Penn

I've just been able to chat to a few old scholars, who lived in Penn House during their youth: fascinating stories of midnight escapes, scaling the wall, or climbing out the window; regaining consciousness after a football accident when Penn was a sickbay; a gas leak caused by the head of art pinning a poster up into on of the 2 gas pipe systems; smashed windows and raucous firework parties... so many boys and families have both lived or worked in the house. Many have told me of the cold and damp; a lack of heating and York's rain seeping through the walls....
Penn contains an extraordinary amount of history and, as it is now, these memories and feelings seep out into the empty rooms, settling into the old carpet, the cracks and the abandoned wardrobes.

First Impressions....

Its a lot emptier than I imagined it would be . The rooms are stripped of bunk beds and cupboards, so the only things left to show it used to be a boarding house is the blue/yellow paint, old notices and old printed curtains covering up the cracked window pane . Under the floorboards diaries were hidden by schoolboys reporting tricks and teases they played in their school masters . And even today some of my classmates remember sleeping there and playing pranks on Mr. Rankin . The times change but the memories are still the same .