Sunningdale School
Encyclopedia
Sunningdale School is a family-run boys' preparatory independent school
of around 100 pupils, situated in Sunningdale
in Berkshire
, close to London
, England.
, Harrow School
, Radley College
, Winchester College
, Marlborough College
, Wellington College
and Charterhouse
. Founded in 1874 by Canon William Girdlestone, it stands in 25 acres (10.1 ha) of gardens and grounds.
, and a house in Normandy
, France
to which each boy goes for a week three times during his time at Sunningdale. The school's major sports are football
, rugby union
and cricket
in the Michaelmas
, Lent
and summer terms respectively. Boys also play tennis
, squash
, Eton Fives
, basketball, indoor hockey, golf and table tennis against other schools. Fives has been played at Sunningdale since at least 1892 and the school has 3 courts on site. They also compete in athletics, cross-country
, fencing
, judo and air rifle shooting. There is a heated indoor swimming pool
which means that the boys can swim all year round. The sports hall includes two full-length cricket nets
and an air rifle range. There is also a 7-hole golf
course in the grounds. Boys can also ride and do clay pigeon shooting
and in their last term they do an outward bound course on Dartmoor
. Indoor activities include chess
, model railway, cooking
, bridge
, snooker
, Scottish dancing
, drama
, model making and board games.
Sunningdale School was the subject of the BBC documentary, "Britian's Youngest Boarders", shown in 2010.
Theophilus Girdlestone, son of the school's founder bread the Tom Thumb Dahlia while at living at Sunningdale.
Independent school
An independent school is a school that is independent in its finances and governance; it is not dependent upon national or local government for financing its operations, nor reliant on taxpayer contributions, and is instead funded by a combination of tuition charges, gifts, and in some cases the...
of around 100 pupils, situated in Sunningdale
Sunningdale
Sunningdale is a large village and civil parish in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire, England.-Location:Sunningdale is located close to the present border with Surrey, and is not far from Ascot, Sunninghill and Virginia Water. It is situated 24 miles west of London and 7...
in Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...
, close to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England.
Introduction
Sunningdale School is a small school that seeks to educate its pupils in a wide range of subjects and disciplines, and to encourage them to take the Common Entrance Examination for entry to senior independent boarding schools. In previous decades, many former pupils have gone on to some of Britain's independent schools, including Eton CollegeEton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
, Harrow School
Harrow School
Harrow School, commonly known simply as "Harrow", is an English independent school for boys situated in the town of Harrow, in north-west London.. The school is of worldwide renown. There is some evidence that there has been a school on the site since 1243 but the Harrow School we know today was...
, Radley College
Radley College
Radley College , founded in 1847, is a British independent school for boys on the edge of the English village of Radley, near to the market town of Abingdon in Oxfordshire, and has become a well-established boarding school...
, Winchester College
Winchester College
Winchester College is an independent school for boys in the British public school tradition, situated in Winchester, Hampshire, the former capital of England. It has existed in its present location for over 600 years and claims the longest unbroken history of any school in England...
, Marlborough College
Marlborough College
Marlborough College is a British co-educational independent school for day and boarding pupils, located in Marlborough, Wiltshire.Founded in 1843 for the education of the sons of Church of England clergy, the school now accepts both boys and girls of all beliefs. Currently there are just over 800...
, Wellington College
Wellington College, Berkshire
-Former pupils:Notable former pupils include historian P. J. Marshall, architect Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, impressionist Rory Bremner, Adolphus Cambridge, 1st Marquess of Cambridge, author Sebastian Faulks, language school pioneer John Haycraft, political journalist Robin Oakley, actor Sir Christopher...
and Charterhouse
Charterhouse School
Charterhouse School, originally The Hospital of King James and Thomas Sutton in Charterhouse, or more simply Charterhouse or House, is an English collegiate independent boarding school situated at Godalming in Surrey.Founded by Thomas Sutton in London in 1611 on the site of the old Carthusian...
. Founded in 1874 by Canon William Girdlestone, it stands in 25 acres (10.1 ha) of gardens and grounds.
Background
The school has its own chapelChapel
A chapel is a building used by Christians as a place of fellowship and worship. It may be part of a larger structure or complex, such as a church, college, hospital, palace, prison or funeral home, located on board a military or commercial ship, or it may be an entirely free-standing building,...
, and a house in Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
to which each boy goes for a week three times during his time at Sunningdale. The school's major sports are football
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
, rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
and cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
in the Michaelmas
Michaelmas
Michaelmas, the feast of Saint Michael the Archangel is a day in the Western Christian calendar which occurs on 29 September...
, Lent
Lent
In the Christian tradition, Lent is the period of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer – through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial – for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and...
and summer terms respectively. Boys also play tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
, squash
Squash (sport)
Squash is a high-speed racquet sport played by two players in a four-walled court with a small, hollow rubber ball...
, Eton Fives
Eton Fives
Eton Fives, one derivative of the British game of Fives, is a hand-ball game, similar to Rugby Fives, played as doubles in a three-sided court. The object is to force the other team to fail to hit the ball 'up' off the front wall, using any variety of wall or ledge combinations as long as the ball...
, basketball, indoor hockey, golf and table tennis against other schools. Fives has been played at Sunningdale since at least 1892 and the school has 3 courts on site. They also compete in athletics, cross-country
Cross country running
Cross country running is a sport in which people run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open country, and include hills, flat ground and sometimes gravel road...
, fencing
Fencing
Fencing, which is also known as modern fencing to distinguish it from historical fencing, is a family of combat sports using bladed weapons.Fencing is one of four sports which have been featured at every one of the modern Olympic Games...
, judo and air rifle shooting. There is a heated indoor swimming pool
Swimming pool
A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, or simply a pool, is a container filled with water intended for swimming or water-based recreation. There are many standard sizes; the largest is the Olympic-size swimming pool...
which means that the boys can swim all year round. The sports hall includes two full-length cricket nets
Cricket nets
Cricket nets are practice nets used by batsmen and bowlers to warm up and/or improve their cricketing techniques. Cricket nets consist of a cricket pitch which is enclosed by cricket nets on either side, to the rear and optionally the roof. The bowling end of the net is left open...
and an air rifle range. There is also a 7-hole golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
course in the grounds. Boys can also ride and do clay pigeon shooting
Clay pigeon shooting
Clay pigeon shooting, also known as clay target shooting, and formally known as Inanimate Bird Shooting, is the art of shooting at special flying targets, known as clay pigeons or clay targets, with a shotgun or any type of firearm....
and in their last term they do an outward bound course on Dartmoor
Dartmoor
Dartmoor is an area of moorland in south Devon, England. Protected by National Park status, it covers .The granite upland dates from the Carboniferous period of geological history. The moorland is capped with many exposed granite hilltops known as tors, providing habitats for Dartmoor wildlife. The...
. Indoor activities include chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
, model railway, cooking
Cooking
Cooking is the process of preparing food by use of heat. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely across the world, reflecting unique environmental, economic, and cultural traditions. Cooks themselves also vary widely in skill and training...
, bridge
Contract bridge
Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...
, snooker
Snooker
Snooker is a cue sport that is played on a green baize-covered table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long side cushions. A regular table is . It is played using a cue and snooker balls: one white , 15 worth one point each, and six balls of different :...
, Scottish dancing
Reel (dance)
The reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure ....
, drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
, model making and board games.
Sunningdale School was the subject of the BBC documentary, "Britian's Youngest Boarders", shown in 2010.
Theophilus Girdlestone, son of the school's founder bread the Tom Thumb Dahlia while at living at Sunningdale.
Former pupils
Former pupils of Sunningdale School include:- Ian FlemingIan FlemingIan Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...
, creator of James BondJames BondJames Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,... - Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of WestminsterGerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of WestminsterMajor-General Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster, , is the son of Robert George Grosvenor, 5th Duke of Westminster, and his wife Hon. Viola Maud Lyttelton. He is the owner of property company Grosvenor Group...
, the richest aristocratAristocracy (class)The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...
in the UK - Prince Michael of KentPrince Michael of KentPrince Michael of Kent is a grandson of King George V and Queen Mary, making him a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. He is also the first cousin once removed of Prince Phillip. Prince Michael occasionally carries out royal duties representing the Queen at some functions in Commonwealth realms outside...
, cousin of the Queen and member of the Royal Family - Lord Frederick WindsorLord Frederick WindsorThe Lord Frederick Windsor , popularly known as Lord Freddie, is a British financial analyst, and the only son of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent...
, currently 32nd in the line of succession to the British ThroneLine of succession to the British ThroneThe line of succession to the British throne is the ordered sequence of those people eligible to succeed to the throne of the United Kingdom and the other 15 Commonwealth realms. By the terms of the Act of Settlement 1701, the succession is limited to the descendants of the Electress Sophia of... - Henry Field, US anthropologist who documented Iraq's Marsh Arabs
- Michael Bowes-LyonMichael Bowes-Lyon, 18th Earl of Strathmore and KinghorneMichael Fergus Bowes-Lyon, 18th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, DL , is a former politician in the House of Lords and former British Army officer.-Family and Background:...
, 18th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne - Henry BlofeldHenry BlofeldHenry Calthorpe Blofeld is a sports journalist. He is best known as a cricket commentator for Test Match Special on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra.Blofeld had an exceptional career as a schoolboy cricketer, cut short by injury...
, BBC cricket commentator - Bernard Heywood, Church of England bishop
- Denis Mulliner, Canon of Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal
- Hugh van Cutsem, businessman and close friend of Prince CharlesCharles, Prince of WalesPrince Charles, Prince of Wales is the heir apparent and eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Since 1958 his major title has been His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. In Scotland he is additionally known as The Duke of Rothesay...
- John Crichton, Viscount Crichton, property consultant
- Guy Clark, Lord Lieutenant of RenfrewshireLord Lieutenant of RenfrewshireThe Lord Lieutenant of Renfrewshire is the representative of the British Crown covering a lieutenancy area of the county of Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland...
- Frederick Hervey, 8th Marquess of BristolFrederick Hervey, 8th Marquess of BristolFrederick William Augustus Hervey, 8th Marquess of Bristol , succeeded his elder half-brother the 7th Marquess in January 1999 as Marquess of Bristol...
- Humphrey LytteltonHumphrey LytteltonHumphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton , also known as Humph, was an English jazz musician and broadcaster, and chairman of the BBC radio comedy programme I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue...
, jazz musician and BBC radio presenter - Julian Sandys, barrister and grandson of Winston ChurchillWinston ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
- Francis FulfordFrancis Fulford (born 1953)Francis Fulford of Great Fulford is the 23rd Fulford of Great Fulford, an armiger and the head of an ancient landed family. He is a TV personality, property commentator, and regular contributor to radio and television....
, TV personality, star of The F***ing Fulfords - William KinghanWilliam KinghanMajor William Sinclair Kinghan was a unionist politician in Northern Ireland.Kinghan studied at Sunningdale School and Rugby School before working as a pork manufacturer. He joined the Ulster Unionist Party, and was elected to the Senate of Northern Ireland in 1940, serving until his death in 1946...
, unionist politician - Carey HarrisonCarey Harrison-Life:Harrison was born in London to actors Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer, and raised in Los Angeles and New York, where he attended the Lycée Français. Subsequently, in Britain, he attended Sunningdale School, Harrow School, and Jesus College, Cambridge....
, novelist and dramatist - Ian OgilvyIan OgilvyIan Raymond Ogilvy is an English film and television actor.-Early life:He was born in Woking, Surrey, England, the son of advertising executive Francis Ogilvy and actress Aileen Raymond .He was educated at Sunningdale School, Eton College and at the Royal Academy of...
, actor