West Downs School

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West Downs School, Romsey Road, Winchester, Hampshire, England.

West Downs was (in the main) a boarding school for boys, and girls (laterly), aged between eight and thirteen.

Purpose built on a good site on the south-western edge of the cathedral city of Winchester, nearly opposite a Victorian county gaol, H. M. Winchester (category B), and next to Edwin Hillier's original nursery (establised there 1874), it was a rigorous and enlightened place that prepared its pupils admirably not only for a great variety of schools (including Winchester and Eton) but for life in general.

The school was founded in 1897 by Lionel Helbert (1870-1919), an half-Jewish exhibitioner of both Winchester and Oriel College, Oxford, and for over four years a House of Commons clerk. It lasted 91 years and about three headmasters, closing in 1988. The site lived on as The West Downs Conference and Performing Arts Centre, which was opened by Lord Puttnam in May 2001, and is now, since 2005, part of the University of Winchester.


Contents

[edit] Some alumni

circa 2,100 pupils passed through its mill...


[edit] References

  • Nowell Smith (ed), Memorials of Lionel Helbert, Founder and Head of West Downs Winchester, London, Oxford University Press, Humphrey Milford, 1926.
  • Mark Hichens, West Downs – A Portrait of an English Prep School, Pentland Press, 1992.

[edit] External Link

[edit] Categories

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