SCHOOL CULTURES AND TRADITIONS (1970)

Records would indicate that from inception in 1929, GCI was a boarding House orientated secondary school. Forty-one years later, in 1970, its boarding House facilities quartered more than six hundred students. The school compound also accommodated most of the school's teachers and junior staff. The students lived in clustered dormitory blocks. There were four of such clusters each defining a
"House". Thus, there were four Houses: Carr, Swanston, Field and Grier. Each new student would be assigned to a House thus becoming a member of a sort of tribal community which primarily determined your afiliation in most of the school's competitive activities.
Driving into the school from the main gate, Carr House grounds was the first of the four Houses one encountered, about half a kilometer from the main gate. Carr House, founded in 1949, was the youngest of the four Houses when Femi and George were admitted in
1970. Adjacent to Carr House grounds was Swanston House grounds.
Founded in 1929, Swanton House was the oldest House in GCI.
The two-House grounds, Carr and Swanston, came to be known as one of the two "regions" in GCI. The other region, consisting of Field and Grier House grounds, was situated about another half a kilometer further down the road into the school, from Swanston House grounds.

The years of establishment of the Houses were:
SWANSTON HOUSE - 1929
GRIER HOUSE - 1930
FIELD HOUSE - 1948
CARR HOUSE - 1949
POWELL HOUSE - 1973

The School compound is located between the two regions which contained a mosque, the dining hall, the main water tank, the administrative block, the principal's office, the library, the hockey pitch, as well as the classrooms, laboratories and the assembly hall.

Apart from Powell House which was a much newer building in 1973, the layout of each House included the following:
i. The dormitory blocks.
ii. The House assembly block: which housed the preparatory room.
iii. A House Field: usually located behind the dormitories.
iv. A Bush Lavatory (pit latrine): usually found behind the House.
v. Laundry Shed: where laundry men attended to laundry weekly.
vi. Old Dining Hall: this hall was shared between two houses (Carr/Swanston and Field/Grier Houses).

Culled from: Metamophorses, 50th Anniversary Yearbook(1970 Set).