Sandroyd School

Sandroyd School was founded by the Revd. L. H. Wellesley Wesley, at his home, Sandroyd House in Cobham in Surrey in 1888. Wellesley Wesley was a great-grandson of Charles Wesley.[5] 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, Hornby then took his place, until his own retirement in 1931. In 1939, the School signed a lease on Rushmore House and the surrounding Rushmore Park, home of the Pitt-Rivers family, lying in the centre of Cranborne Chase on the borders of Wiltshire and Dorset. In 1939, with the threat of the Second World War, the school moved there, where it has remained ever since. (A link between the two sites is that Sandroyd House was built in 1860 for the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Roddam Spencer Stanhope by the architect Philip Webb (1831–1915), the friend of William Morris, and it was Webb who remodelled the interior of Rushmore for General Pitt-Rivers twenty years later. He also designed an arched gateway for the Park, the drawings for which are in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

In 1995 the school started to accept some day pupils and in 2004 Sandroyd School became coeducational.[6]

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.[7]

The Sandroydian is the school magazine, published and distributed three times a year. The magazine contains an editorial by the Headmaster, reports by staff and pupils of the many activities, outings and special events which have taken place in the course of the term and full sports results. In addition there is a section reserved for some of the pupils' creative work - art, stories and poetry.

Before entry to Sandroyd, all prospective pupils are invited to an assessment morning or afternoon in the year before they are due to start at the school.[8]

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

See also People educated at Sandroyd School

Former pupils, known as Old Sandroydians, include

• Sir Terence Rattigan, playwright[9]
• Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington, Foreign Secretary and Secretary-General of NATO[9]
• Sir Ranulph Fiennes, explorer[9]
• Sir Timothy Sainsbury, industrialist[9]
• Professor Michael Dummett[9]
• Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon[9]
• King Peter II of Yugoslavia[9]
• Prince Tomislav of Yugoslavia

• "Sandroyd School". Independent Schools Inspectorate. Archived from the original on 1 November 2010. Retrieved 11 June 2010.
• "Sandroyd School". Ofsted. Retrieved 5 June 2010.