History of Sedbergh School in 50 Objects: #1 Winder
To mark 2025, our 500th year, Sedbergh School have curated A History of Sedbergh School in 50 Objects. This special collection of articles and stories charts the history of our school, but told through our buildings, our paintings, our photographs, and of course, the Hills that Have Stood Around Us. Published each week through our 500th anniversary year, we share our unique history.
Object 1: Winder
Since its very foundation, Sedbergh School has sat beneath Winder, one of the Howgill Fells. Winder has played an enduring role in the life of the School and its pupils. Our new pupils climb Sedbergh on their very first day of the Michaelmas term, giving them a unique understanding of the position of Sedbergh in the landscape. The summit offers 360 degree views stretching over the Yorkshire Dales, out to the Lakeland Fells and across Morecambe bay.
Sedbergh School’s Head of Geology, Ellen McGowan, explains a little of Winder’s origin:
‘Made of greywacke from the Palaeozoic era 500 million years ago, Winder is much the oldest item associated with the school. The rock forms when submarine landslides, turbidity currents, deposit sediments on the seafloor. The landslides occurred due to the collapse of the continental slope in an ancient ocean, the Lapetus Ocean which existed between Scotland and England about 500 million years ago. In Settlebeck ghyll, part way up Winder, the ancient seafloor can be seen. Large flute casts can be seen which represent areas of the seafloor that got ripped up, telling geologists how powerful and fast flowing these ancient submarine landslides were. The ancient seafloor is no longer horizontal, the layers of rock were tilted and folded when the Iapetus Ocean closed and England crashed into Scotland.’
For generations of Sedbergh pupils, Winder has been a cornerstone of their Sedberghian existence, a summit to conquer on walks and runs, a place of solace, or of friendship. Many returning Old Sedberghians make time to walk up Winder on their visits to School to revisit the view and ignite memories. Old Sedberghian Tim Birdsall (Evans House 1949 – 1954) featured Winder in his 1954 poem, Sedbergh Revisited:
‘Let me stand again on Winder, in the magic summer breeze,
Feel once more the stones and heather, watch the bracken and the trees;
Let me see again the river, and the fields and walls and farms,
Sedbergh, let me feel you near me, let me take you in my arms.’
Winder has been a focal point for reflection at moments when the Sedbergh community has chosen to come together. On Armistice Day 1918 the boys and Masters of Sedbergh climbed the south-eastern slopes of Winder, where a bonfire was lit, and School songs were sung. To mark the 400th anniversary of the School in 1925, boys and masters again took to the slopes with torches, marching four abreast in formation and singing enthusiastically. In 1937 to celebrate the coronation of King George VI a torch lit procession of boys climbed the southern slope and made the shape of a crown with their torches for the towns people to see after dark.
However, climbing Winder wasn’t always a joyful occasion. Alumni speak of being made to climb Winder before breakfast as a punishment, sometimes with the added duty of taking a rubbing of the Trig Point on the summit to prove they had made the ascent. Some canny pupils made multiple rubbings and sold these on when their housemates were given ‘Trigs’ as a punishment, to save those later pupils from having to make the early morning climb. Housemasters quickly got wise to this however, and gave fresh dated sheets of paper to pupils required to gather rubbings to circumvent fraud.
The iconic School Song, Winder, is an ode to the hill itself. Written in 1911 by Headmaster Frederick Malim the lyrics celebrate the streams, rivers and fells surrounding Sedbergh. The original lyrics discuss ’boyhood’ and ‘the Sedbergh man’ – appropriate of course to the audience when the song was first written. However, as the School approached its 500th anniversary, Headmaster Dan Harrison, chose to subtly change the words to reflect the co-educational nature of the modern School. Our pupils, parents and alumni now sing together,
‘Tis the Hills that have stood around us,
Unchanged since our days began;
It is Cautley, Calf and Winder,
That make Sedberghians.’