Marlborough College is a British boarding school in the county of Wiltshire, founded in 1843 for the education of the sons of Church of England clergy, although it now accepts both boys and girls of all beliefs. There are now just over 800 pupils, approximately one third of whom are girls (Marlborough was, in 1968, the first major English public school to allow girls into the sixth form, setting a trend that many other schools would follow). New pupils are admitted at the ages of 13+ ("Shell entry") and 16 (Lower Sixth).

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. There are speculations that the Mound is actually of much more ancient construction and possibly a similar feature to Silbury Hill. 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.

As a relatively recent foundation, most of the buildings are not particularly interesting architecturally. 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 early 18th century mansion, later converted to a coaching inn which was bought as the first building for the school. The west side consists of the 1960s red brick dining hall and a Victorian boarding house now converted to other purposes. The north west corner is dominated by its Victorian Gothic style chapel which has an interesting collection of pre-Raphaelite style paintings by J R Spencer Stanhope. The rest of the Court is surrounded by Victorian buildings in styles ranging from mock Tudor to Victorian prison.

On the other side of the Mound is the Science laboratory, designed and built in 1933, it is an early example of shuttered concrete construction and was listed as a building of architectural significance in 1970.

Past pupils

• John Betjeman, Poet
• Anthony Blunt, Art Historian and Traitor
• Chris de Burgh, Musician
• Rab Butler, Politician
• Henry Brooke, Politician
• Francis Chichester, round the world yachtsman
• Sir Charles Galton Darwin, British physicist
• Nick Drake, British folk musician
• J. Meade Falkner, author of Moonfleet
• Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop
• Nigel Gresley, steam locomotive designer
• Anthony Hope, Writer
• John Hunt, leader of the first successful ascent of Mount Everest
• Alan Lascelles , Courtier
• Ian McDonald-Smith , Olympic yachtsman
• Norris and Ross McWhirter journalists, authors, and political activists
• Mark Malloch Brown, United Nations Administrator
• James Mason, Actor
• Sir Peter Medawar, Nobel prize-winning biologist
• Kate Middleton, reputed girlfriend of Prince William of Wales
• William Morris, British artist and writer
• John Beverly Nichols, British writer
• Mark Phillips, Olympic horseman and former husband of Anne, Princess Royal
• Ben Pimlott , Biographer
• Siegfried Sassoon, Poet
• Charles Sorley, Poet
• Hallam Tennyson, Lord Tennyson, British statesman
• Henry Maitland (Jumbo) Wilson, Field Marshal
• Evelyn Wood, Field Marshal

External links

• Marlborough College website