Students Gathering on Sir Roderic Hill Memorial Wall

Students Gathering on Sir Roderic Hill Memorial Wall

This photograph also hangs on the back wall of the alcove and reminds us of something that is widely forgotten: that after adding two floors to the Union Building, the Beit Quadrangle was laid out as a semi-formal garden, with grass lawns and York stone paths and Portland stone walls, as a monument to the recently deceased Sir Roderic Hill, and named the Sir Roderic Hill Memorial Gardens.

But the building on the other side of Prince Consort Road housing the Department of Aeronautical Engineering, the Roderic Hill Building, is also named for our seventh Rector. As a monument to him, who had after all spent 32 years in the RAF and studied architecture as a student, the dedicating of an entire building and so appropriate a building has unsurprisingly eclipsed a wall and some grass as a memorial.

This photograph shows students relaxing at lunchtime in 1960.

Half the wall, the part in the western half of the Quad, was removed in 200? to allow an increased area of terracing with more outdoor tables. The octagonal stone slab that was inset plumb in the centre of the quadrangle and bore the inscription “THIS GARDEN COMMEMORATES SIR RODERIC HILL KCB MC AFC MA LLD / RECTOR / IMPERIAL COLLEGE / 1948 – 1954” .was removed around the same time.

Let's move round to the final wall of the alcove......