Sherborne School

Sherborne School stands beside Sherborne Abbey in the Dorset town of Sherborne. Founded in AD 705 by St Aldhelm, it has occupied the same site for over 1,300 years. After the dissolution of the monasteries it was re-founded in 1550 by Edward VI and remains one of the oldest schools in the United Kingdom. The school educates about 540 boys aged 13 to 18 and three quarters of its 2021 A level results were A or A* grades. Many of its buildings are on the National Heritage List for England, including seven listed as grade I and four as grade II*. The school’s history is visible in its fabric. Anglo-Saxon masonry survives in the Beckett Room below the school library. The school chapel dates from the 12th century, the library from the 13th, and the Abbot’s House from about 1480. The outlines of the monastic cloister and the first-floor Abbot’s Chapel can still be seen on the walls beyond the Abbot’s House. Alfred the Great is said to have been an early pupil when the seat of West Saxon government moved to Sherborne in 860. Visitors find a working school set around a quadrangle formed from former monastic buildings. The chapel, library and Abbot’s House remain in use. The old Abbey Silk Mill was converted into workshops, a museum and laboratories. The Carrington Building houses modern classrooms and the Devitt Court was created from a later workshop. The school also shares facilities with Sherborne International, a co-educational boarding school for pupils from non-British backgrounds.