Kingwell Court Preparatory School was a British

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...

for boys.. The school was located in a remodelled Tudor home near Bradford-on-Avon,

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

and prepared boys for the

Common Entrance Exam Common Entrance Examinations (commonly known as CE) are taken by independent school pupils in the UK as part of the selective admissions process at age 13, though ten independent schools do select at 11 using different test papers. They are set ...

to enter a

British Public School In England and Wales (but not Scotland), a public school is a fee-charging endowed school originally for older boys. They are "public" in the sense of being open to pupils irrespective of locality, denomination or paternal trade or profess ...

. It was founded by Mr Sydney Allen, originally as Kingwell Hall at Timsbury. In the 1936, it moved to Bradford-on-Avon. At the death of Mr Allen, at the beginning of the war, it was amalgamated with Kilvington Hall, a prep school situated in Enfield Chase and which had to be evacuated because of enemy action. This school had two head-masters, Messrs K.V. Beech and W. Bennett. Mr Beech ran Kingwell during

WWII World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

while Mr. Bennett served as an officer in the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

. The school crest was an elephant; the motto: "Be strong, gently". School was divided into 4 sets:

Lion The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large Felidae, cat of the genus ''Panthera'' native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphi ...

Tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus '' Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on u ...

Leopard The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant species in the genus '' Panthera'', a member of the cat family, Felidae. It occurs in a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa, in some parts of Western and Central Asia, Southern Russia, a ...

s and

Bear Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Nor ...

s. There were two mistresses and about six resident masters, plus the two head masters and a retired nurse acting as the Matron and her assistant. The piano teacher, Mr Hathaway, lived in town and came to school on two afternoons a week to offer private lessons for an extra fee, after regular classes were dismissed. He also conducted singing lessons for the whole school. Evening prep was for one hour, devoting 20 minutes to each of three regularly scheduled subjects. Classes were held Monday through Saturday morning and all afternoons except on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Kingwell Court School merged with

The Old Ride School The Old Ride School (previously called The Old Ride Preparatory School) was an independent school in England, first at Canford Cliffs just outside Bournemouth, then Little Horwood, Buckinghamshire, and later at Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire. Hi ...

, which moved from its original home at Little Horwood, Buckinghamshire, in 1959. Boys from The Old Ride joined the Kingwell Court boys in a combined school, renamed "The Old Ride" in the winter term of 1959. For a while the two sets of boys were easily distinguished by the fact that they retained their school uniforms - red for The Old Ride and purple for Kingwell Court. Eventually the purple phased out. When the two schools merged, the previous Kingwell Court division into four sets of boys (Lions, Tigers, Leopards and Bears) became the four Nations of Britons, Spartans, Trojans and Vikings, a continuation of the arrangement at the "old" Old Ride school. The Nations competed for the coveted weekly "Owl" trophy. The school closed down in 1990.

References

{{Authority control Boys' schools in Wiltshire Boarding schools in Wiltshire Defunct schools in Wiltshire Educational institutions disestablished in 1990 1990 disestablishments in England Defunct boarding schools in England