Old Senior Combination Room Old Senior Combination Room
This photo shows the Old SCR as it was before 1979, when it was used as a Combination Room by the Fellows after dinner in Hall. Since then, it has been made into a small dining room.
The Combination Room, or Parlour (as it was often called in early accounts), was probably built shortly after the rest of Old Court was completed in 1450. The gable end of the Old Hall does not coincide with the gable end of the Old Library, and the Combination Room (and the President's Study above) appear to have been built into the gap, resulting in the north-west corner of Old Court being cut off by a diagonal containing a window into the Combination Room.
The panelling was put up in 1686 by Cornelius Austin, and it is probable that the windows were altered to their present design (rectangular frames with cross mullions) at the same time.
In 1819-22 stained glass by Charles Muss was inserted into some of the windows.
In 1912, the plaster was removed from the ceiling to reveal the present half-timbered appearance, and the paint was stripped from the panelling.
By the 1960s, the Fellowship had grown too large for all of them to take lunch in the SCR. In 1965, the doorway which can be seen in the photo was created into the Lower Library, which was converted into an SCR extension, called the Munro Room, which then became the breakfast, lunch, and out-of-term dining room for the Fellows until the new Hall opened in 1979.
Some time after 1979, the dining table (which had been displaced after 1965) was restored to the SCR.