Kimbolton School - History

History

Kimbolton School has had a strong role within the village of Kimbolton since its foundation in the 16th century. The school originally occupied buildings within the Churchyard, but moved to new premises in Tilbrook Road in the late 1800s.

Kimbolton Castle is reported by school legend to be haunted by Catherine of Aragon who died there in 1536 after several years of imprisonment. It is rumoured that her ghost walks upon the original floor levels which have been altered in modern times, such that her ghost appears as legs and lower body projecting from the ceiling on one floor with head and upper body gliding along the floor above. Another former inhabitant of the Castle, Sir John Popham, reputedly threw his baby child out of a castle window into the courtyard. It is said that the stone upon which the baby landed glows red annually on the anniversary of this event. A third ghostly legend of similarly dubious provenance describes a female spectre periodically walking in a field north-east of the castle, on the gentle slope below Warren House.

Charles Edward Montagu, the 4th Earl who was created Duke of Manchester in 1719, had many works of reconstruction carried out between 1690 and 1720. Sir John Vanbrugh and his assistant Nicholas Hawksmoor redesigned the facades of the castle in a classical style, but with battlements to evoke its history as a castle; the portico was later added by Alessandro Galilei. The Venetian painter Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini redecorated some of the reconstructed rooms in 1708, including the main staircase and the chapel. Rich, gilded furnishings in a Louis XIV-inspired style were commissioned from French upholsterers working in London.

Robert Adam produced plans for the castle gatehouse and other garden buildings, including an orangery. Only one of these buildings, the gatehouse, was constructed in around 1764. Mews buildings were added to provide stables, and an avenue of Giant Sequoias was planted in the 19th century.

The senior school is based in the grounds of the castle, and its preparatory school is based at the other end of the village, but is connected to the senior school via 'The Duchess Walk', a tree-lined pathway. The grounds total over 190 acres (77 ha). The school is the successor to the village grammar school; although there are references to a school at Kimbolton as early as 1531, the generally accepted date for the foundation is 1600. In 1949 it was renamed from Kimbolton Grammar School to Kimbolton School, and the following year it bought the Castle from the Duke of Manchester.

The School's Latin motto is Spes Durat Avorum (may the hope of our forefathers endure).