School Buildings
The college is built beside the Mound. This was used as the motte of a castle. No remains of the castle can be seen today. It is generally accepted that the Mound is actually of much more ancient construction and possibly a similar feature to Silbury Hill; indeed, it is a contender for the prize of Europe's oldest building. Legend has it that the Mound is the burial site of Merlin and that the name of the town, Marlborough comes from Merlin's Barrow. More plausibly, the name probably derives from the medieval term for chalky ground "marl" – thus "town on chalk".
The main focus of the college is the Court. This is surrounded by buildings in a number of different styles. At the south end is the back of an early 18th century mansion, later converted to a coaching inn which was bought as the first building for the school. Next to it are the old stables, now converted into boarding houses. The west side consists of the 1960s red brick dining hall, which boasts the largest unsupported roof in the country, and a Victorian boarding house now converted to other purposes. The north west corner is dominated by its Victorian Gothic style chapel by the architects George Frederick Bodley and Thomas Garner which has an interesting collection of pre-Raphaelite style paintings by John Roddam Spencer Stanhope and stained glass by William Morris.
The rest of the Court is surrounded by buildings in styles ranging from faux Tudor to classical Georgian and Victorian prison. The latter, B house, was (along with the College Chapel) designed by the Victorian architect Edward Blore, whose other works include the facade of Buckingham Palace (since redesigned) and the Vorontsovsky Palace in Alupka, Ukraine.
On the other side of the Mound is the Science laboratory, built in 1933. It is an early example of shuttered concrete construction and was listed as a building of architectural significance in 1970.
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