The site that is currently occupied by Boult and Boult Secondary was once the Great Kitchen of the Monastery, initially built in the 1060s. This was a large, freestanding building about 40-foot square, with walls several feet thick. Recent archaeological work has revealed layers of floors from four centuries of kitchens, each being built over the remains of the former when it was demolished or destroyed by fire.
After the Abbey was surrendered, the Great Kitchen was no longer needed, although may have been used briefly to cater for the school and in 1553, when Queen Mary briefly re-introduced monks to the Abbey. At some point following March 1571, the kitchen was demolished and became a garden to the headmaster’s house. In the 1620s, a boarding house was built on part of the site and was known by 1719 as ‘Mrs Playford’s house’, operated by one of the earliest School Dames who looked after boarding pupils. In the mid-nineteenth century, the boarding house was demolished and once again became open space, utilised by Head Master Liddell as a garden. In 1978, the Adrian Boult Music Centre was constructed on the site. It was demolished in 2017 but its name remained attached to the newly constructed building, memorialising Old Westminster and composer Adrian Boult.
