The grammar school at Market Snodsbury had, I understand, been built somewhere in the year 1416, and, as with so many of these ancient foundations, there still seemed to brood over its Great Hall, where the afternoon's festivities were to take place, not a little of the fug of the centuries. It was the hottest day of the summer, and though somebody had opened a tenative window or two, the atmosphere remained distinctive and individual.
In this hall the youth of Market Snodsbury had been eating its daily lunch for a matter of five hundred years, and the flavour lingered. The air was sort of heavy and langourous, if you know what I mean, with the scent of Young England and boiled beef and carrots.
(from Right Ho, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
[This passage brings to mind so vividly many scenes of yesteryear. There is no sensory experience quite like that of being trapped in close quarters with a group of seventh grade boys who have been playing outside on a warm day. Ah, the "scent of Young England," or any other place, for that matter.]
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