Ravenscroft School (Somerset) - History

History

Ravenscroft was founded by Mr H. F. Bailey as a preparatory school for boys at Yelverton, Devon, in 1931. In the course of its existence, it had at least three different homes.

Its first home was a house at Yelverton called Ravenscroft House, on the edge of Yelverton Common, with views over Dartmoor. This was previously known as 'Hayesleigh' and is now the Ravenscroft Care Home. In 1941, during the Second World War, a new but temporary Royal Air Force airfield called RAF Harrowbeer was constructed on part of Roborough Down close to Yelverton, and Ravenscroft House was requisitioned to become the officers' mess.

From 1945 to 1970, the school occupied Beckington Castle in the village of Beckington, Somerset. This property had previously been the home of Captain Hamilton, Coldstream Guards, later 3rd Baron Hamilton of Dalzell, and it was the birthplace of his second son the politician Archie Hamilton, Baron Hamilton of Epsom.

In February, 1966, a major fire began in the Castle's boiler room and much of the interior was destroyed. Ravenscroft closed for a week, then continued to operate in its outbuildings while the extensive damage was made good.

In the year 1970, growing numbers of pupils led to a move to a large country house called Farleigh House near the village of Farleigh Hungerford. It had previously been owned by Earl Cairns and the Hely-Hutchinson family, a cadet branch of the Earls of Donoughmore.

In the late 1960s, while still at Beckington, the school had established a specialist unit which taught children who were dyslexic, and during the 1970s this unit increased in size until by 1980 the school was reclassified as a special school for children with dyslexia and other learning difficulties.

During the 1980s, the age range of children taught changed. As a preparatory school, the range had been from five to thirteen, at which point children proceeded to secondary schools. As a special school, 'O' Level courses (later GCSE) were introduced, and children stayed at Ravenscroft until the age of sixteen or seventeen.

By the year 1995, the school's age range was from eleven to seventeen. The number of pupils was then sixty-six, of whom eleven were girls, and expenditure per pupil was £21,609, with a pupil:teacher ratio of 3.4 to one. All children were boarders, and lived either at the main school or at Houlton Hall, or two houses owned by the school in the neighbouring town of Trowbridge. There was a Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme, and some pupils attended courses at Trowbridge College.

In 1996, the school was closed and most of the staff and pupils transferred to a new educational institution called Farleigh College, now located near Mells, Somerset.