Sackville School is a small profit-making

coeducational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to ...

independent school located in the village of

Hildenborough Hildenborough is a village and rural parish in the borough of Tonbridge and Malling in Kent, England. It is located 2 miles (3.2 km) north-west of Tonbridge and 5 miles (8 km) south-east of Sevenoaks. The village lies in the River Med ...

, in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, England.

History

Sackville, formerly Foxbush House, was built in 1866 for Charles Fitch Kemp, a London Chartered Accountant. The Charing Cross to

Tonbridge Tonbridge ( ) is a market town in Kent, England, on the River Medway, north of Royal Tunbridge Wells, south west of Maidstone and south east of London. In the administrative borough of Tonbridge and Malling, it had an estimated populat ...

railway line was in the process of construction and the purchase enabled him to combine his London career with his ambition to be a country landowner. He and his wife, Sarah, had ten children (4 sons and 6 daughters) and a large staff of servants and gardeners to maintain the house. He kept a pack of dogs in kennels beyond the

kitchen garden The traditional kitchen garden, vegetable garden, also known as a potager (from the French ) or in Scotland a kailyaird, is a space separate from the rest of the residential garden – the ornamental plants and lawn areas. It is used for grow ...

and employed his own cook. He played an important role in local affairs, being the first Chairman of the Hildenborough Parish Council when it was formed in 1894 and a churchwarden from 1869 until his death in 1907. In 1912 the estate was sold to Barnett Lewis, a wealthy diamond merchant, who installed oak panelling in several of the reception rooms. On his death in 1929, the property was damaged only to be refurbished by Herbert Rae, whose wife's coat of arms is on the fireplace in the entrance hall. During the

Second World War 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 opposi ...

, the house was requisitioned as the headquarters of the 59th Newfoundland Heavy Regiment,

Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...

. From 1949 to 1970 it was the Convent of Our Lady School, which had moved from Cannon Lane, Tonbridge. In 1970, St Thomas's School moved to the site from Sevenoaks, and later became Foxbush School. This in turn was replaced by Sackville School in 1987.

References

External links

Sackville School website
Independent schools in Kent Tonbridge and Malling Educational institutions established in 1987 1987 establishments in England {{Kent-school-stub