Sandroyd School is an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

co-educational preparatory school for day and boarding pupils aged 2 to 13 in the south of Wiltshire, England. The school's main building is Rushmore House, a 19th-century country house which is surrounded by the Rushmore Estate, now playing fields, woods and parkland. Sandroyd School was originally established by Louis Herbert Wellesley Wesley as a small private coaching establishment for boys hoping to enter

Eton College Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, C ...

. In the latest Independent Schools Inspectorate report carried out in 2014, Sandroyd School was judged as 'excellent' in all nine inspected categories.

Location

The school is in the south of

Berwick St John Berwick St John is a village and civil parish in south-west Wiltshire, England, about east of Shaftesbury in Dorset. The parish includes the Ashcombe Park estate, part of the Ferne Park estate, and most of Rushmore Park (since 1939 the home ...

parish, near the village of

Tollard Royal Tollard Royal is a village and civil parish on Cranborne Chase, Wiltshire, England. The parish is on Wiltshire's southern boundary with Dorset and the village is southeast of the Dorset town of Shaftesbury, on the B3081 road between Shaftesbur ...

and the county border with Dorset.

History

Sandroyd School was founded as a school for boys by L. H. Wellesley Wesley at his home, Sandroyd House in Cobham, Surrey in 1888. He was a great-grandson of

Charles Wesley Charles Wesley (18 December 1707 – 29 March 1788) was an English leader of the Methodist movement. Wesley was a prolific hymnwriter who wrote over 6,500 hymns during his lifetime. His works include " And Can It Be", " Christ the Lord Is Risen ...

. From 1898 the school was governed by two men, until then assistant masters at Elstree School: Charles Plumpton Wilson (1859–1938) and William Meysey Hornby (1870–1955), who took over from Wesley that year, as Headmaster and Deputy Headmaster respectively. Wilson retired in 1920 and Hornby took his place, until his own retirement in 1931. In 1939, in anticipation of the Second World War, the school moved to Rushmore House, home of the

Pitt-Rivers Pitt-Rivers is an English surname adopted by later holders of the peerage Baron Rivers. Holders of the surname include: * Horace Pitt-Rivers, 3rd Baron Rivers (1777–1831); born William Beckford, adopted the name on inheriting the title from his ...

family. The house lies in the centre of

Cranborne Chase Cranborne Chase () is an area of central southern England, straddling the counties Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire. It is part of the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). The area is dominated by, ...

on the borders of Wiltshire and Dorset. A link between the two sites is that Sandroyd House was built in 1860 for the pre-Raphaelite painter

John Roddam Spencer Stanhope John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (20 January 1829 – 2 August 1908) was an English artist associated with Edward Burne-Jones and George Frederic Watts and often regarded as a second-wave pre-Raphaelite. His work is also studied within the context ...

by the architect

Philip Webb Philip Speakman Webb (12 January 1831 – 17 April 1915) was a British architect and designer sometimes called the Father of Arts and Crafts Architecture. His use of vernacular architecture demonstrated his commitment to "the art of commo ...

(1831–1915), the friend of

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...

, and it was Webb who remodelled the interior of Rushmore for General Pitt Rivers twenty years later. In the 1960s the school purchased the freehold of the school site. In 1995 the school started to accept day pupils, and in 2004 it became coeducational.

Nursery and pre-prep school

Sandroyd School has a pre-prep and nursery school known as the Walled Garden, opened in 2004, for children aged two to seven. This was described as 'excellent' in an ISI inspection report of 2014.'The Walled Garden' OFSTED report
Publisher: ''

OFSTED The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is a Non-ministerial government department, non-ministerial department of Government of the United Kingdom, His Majesty's government, reporting to Parliament of the U ...

''. Published: 5 June 2008. Retrieved: 8 January 2013.

List of headmasters

*1888–1898: L. H. Wellesley Wesley *1898–1920: C. P. Wilson *1920–1931: W. M. Hornby *1931–1955: H. ff. Ozanne *1955–1963: K. B. Buckland *1963–1981: D. C. Howes *1981–1982: T. R. Reynolds (acting) *1982–1994: D. J. Cann *1994–1995: T. R. Reynolds (acting) *1995–2003: M. J. Hatch *2003–2016: M. J. S. Harris *2016–: A. B. Speers

Old Sandroydians

:''See also''

People educated at Sandroyd School A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...

Former pupils, known as Old Sandroydians, include: *Sir

Terence Rattigan Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan (10 June 191130 November 1977) was a British dramatist and screenwriter. He was one of England's most popular mid-20th-century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background.Geoffrey Wan ...

, playwrightSandroyd – Old Sandroydians
at Sandroyd.org, Retrieved: 8 January 2013 * Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington, Foreign Secretary and Secretary-General of NATO *Sir

Ranulph Fiennes Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, 3rd Baronet (born 7 March 1944), commonly known as Sir Ranulph Fiennes () and sometimes as Ran Fiennes, is a British explorer, writer and poet, who holds several endurance records. Fiennes served in the ...

, explorer *Sir

Tim Sainsbury Sir Timothy Alan Davan Sainsbury (born 11 June 1932) is a Conservative politician and businessman in the United Kingdom. Early life Sainsbury is the youngest son of Alan Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury, and his wife Doreen. His elder brothers are ...

, industrialist *

Michael Dummett Sir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett (27 June 1925 – 27 December 2011) was an English academic described as "among the most significant British philosophers of the last century and a leading campaigner for racial tolerance and equality." He w ...

* Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon *King Peter II of Yugoslavia *

Prince Tomislav of Yugoslavia Prince Tomislav of Yugoslavia ( sr-cyr, Томислав Карађорђевић, Tomislav Karađorđević; 19 January 1928 – 12 July 2000) was a member of the House of Karađorđević, the second son of King Alexander I and Queen Maria of Yug ...

* Justin Packshaw, explorer

References

External links

* * * {{authority control Preparatory schools in Wiltshire Educational institutions established in 1888 1888 establishments in England