Kingwell Court Preparatory School

Kingwell Court Preparatory School was a British boarding school for boys.

This British boarding school for boys is now believed to have closed. It was located in a remodelled Tudor home near Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire to prepare boys for the Common Entrance Exam to enter a British Public School. It was founded by two head masters, Messrs K.V. Beech and W. Bennett. Mr Beech ran the school during WWII while Mr. Bennett served as an officer in the British Army. This author attended from 1946 until 1949 prior to his admittance to Harrow. The school crest was an elephant; the motto: "Be strong, gently". School was divided into 4 sets: Lions, Tigers, Leopards and Bears.There were a couple of mistresses and about six resident masters, plus the two head masters and a retired nurse acting as the Matron and her assistant to watch over the health of the boarders and administer first aid or summon the Doctor if warranted. The piano teacher lived in town and came to school on two afternoons a week to offer private lessons for an extra fee, after regular classes were dismissed. Evening prep was for one hour, devoting 20 minutes to each of three regularly scheduled subjects. Classes were held Monday through Saturday morning and all afternoons except on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Kingwell Court School was "taken over" by The Old Ride School, which moved from its original home at Little Horwood, Buckinghamshire, in 1959. See "The Old Ride". Boys from The Old Ride joined the Kingwell Court boys in a combined school, renamed "The Old Ride" in the winter term of 1959. For a while the two sets of boys were easily distinguished by the fact that they retained their school uniforms - Red for The Old Ride and Purple for Kingwell Court. Eventually the purple phased out. Refer to "The Old Ride" in Wikipedia for further information. The school closed down in the 1990s. It was run by the Flynn family. When the two schools merged, the previous Kingwell Court division into four sets of boys (Lions, Tigers, Leopards and Bears) became the four Nations of Britons, Spartans, Trojans and Vikings, a continuation of the arrangement at the "old" Old Ride school. The Nations competed for the coveted weekly "Owl" trophy (which meant extra after-lunch sweets!).