Barnard Castle School (colloquially Barney School or locally the County School) is a co-educational private day and boarding school in the market town of Barnard Castle, County Durham, in the North East of England. It is a member of The Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC). It was founded in 1883 with funding from a 13th-century endowment of John I de Balliol and the bequest of the local industrialist Benjamin Flounders. The ambition was to create a school of the quality of the ancient public schools at a more reasonable cost, whilst accepting pupils regardless of their faith.
Originally the North Eastern County School, the name was changed in 1924, but is still generally known locally as the "County School". The school is set in its own grounds next to the Bowes Museum, on the outskirts of Barnard Castle. An on-site prep school caters for pupils aged 4 to 11, while the senior school caters for pupils aged 11 to 18. The school was previously funded by direct grant. Founded as an all-boys school, it has been fully co-educational since 1993. There are around 660 pupils and some 200 members of staff.
Since the 1980s, the school has been one of Britain's most successful at producing top class rugby union players. During this period it schooled England international players Rob Andrew and Tony and Rory Underwood. The school has also produced Mathew Tait, Lee Dickson and Tim Visser, and appeared in three finals of the inter-school Daily Mail Cup. Former pupils in other fields include Edward Mellanby (the discoverer of Vitamin D); industrialist Percy Mills, The Lord Mills; fashion designers Giles Deacon and Patrick Grant; poet Craig Raine; and actor Kevin Whately.
History The school can trace its origins to an endowment made by John I de Balliol, then Lord of Barnard Castle, in 1229. The school itself was established in 1883 when it occupied temporary premises in Middleton One Row, County Durham, whilst construction of the school was undertaken in Barnard Castle."Stately surroundings for 'merchant' school", The Northern Echo. Darlington. 5 May 2004. Initially there were 25 boarders and 10-day pupils, but by the end of 1884, there were 76 boarders. Originally known as the North Eastern County School, the main school building was completed on 2 February 1886 and initially housed 116 boarders and 12-day pupils. The Bishop of Durham presided over the foundation ceremony.The Times Literary Supplement (London), 25 January 1934; pg. 61; Issue 1669. The building was designed by Clark & Moscrop of Darlington in the Jacobean style, and is a Grade II listed building built with local Yorkstone and Lakeland slate. The school was built for the trustees of Benjamin Flounders and the trustees of St. John's Hospital, Barnard Castle, who managed the Baliol endowment, and was overseen by a University of Durham committee. Flounders was a Quaker industrialist who had helped to fund the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The Flounders trustees financed the entirety of the construction of the school with a donation of £31,000. A further £20,000 was raised by subscription to cover initial running costs, £10,000 of which came from St John's Hospital. The gift from St John's was conditional on the school being situated in Barnard Castle, and this determined its location.
The school's governance was inspired by the county school movement of Joseph Lloyd Brereton, who was largely inspired in turn by the example of Thomas Arnold, the headmaster of Rugby School. The object of the school was to provide a liberal education, with fees set at a fraction of those charged by the leading public schools. Tolerance of non-conformist denominations such as Methodism and Roman Catholicism informed the school's ethos, and the school has always remained independent of the Church of England. Brereton's son became the first headmaster of the school. In contrast to the largely classical education offered by many of the public schools of the time, the school always maintained a focus on scientific and technological education. A strong sporting programme was believed to build character. Extensions over the next few years included a sanatorium in 1890 (now the music school) and a swimming-bath block in 1896. In 1900 a £4,000 (£400,000 in 2010) science block was opened by Lord Barnard with Brooke Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham in attendance.Full text of "Life and letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, D.D., D.C.L., sometime Bishop of Durham" The building is now inhabited by Tees and Dale houses.
The school name was changed to Barnard Castle School in 1924, and it was by this time one of the largest public schools in the North of England. When Harold Birkbeck was appointed headmaster in 1935 there were 193 pupils. In 1942 the school was elected to the Headmaster's Conference, making it an "official" public school. Following the introduction of the Education Act 1944, from 1945 the school became a direct grant grammar school and the number of pupils enrolled at the school increased substantially. In April 1961 a £65,000 (£1.1 million in 2010) appeal was launched for funding to build new science blocks and a library building. By this time there were 470 boys at the school, more than half of whom progressed to universities or higher education. Birkbeck introduced squash to the school, and made it one of the best-known schools for the sport in the country in the 1960s and 1970s. The novelist Will Cohu described the school in 1974 as "popular with parents who were in the armed forces. It was cheap, did not have any reputation for abuse, and was strong on games". The direct-grant revenue stream was abolished in 1975, making the school reliant upon independent funding. An appeal was launched that year to ensure the school's survival, with £109,000 (£750,000 in 2011) raised within nine months.The Times, Thursday, 19 February 1976; pg. 16; Issue 59632; col E The school's first computer was installed in January 1978.
Frank Macnamara became headmaster in 1980, described as "an affable enthusiast" in The Guardian."Rugby Union: School with the boys' own story – England were not the first to field Andrew and Underwood together". The Guardian (London), 16 March 1991. Under his tenure the school would develop its reputation for fostering world-class rugby talent. For the duration of its existence (1980–1997) the school took part in the Assisted Places Scheme.Assisted Places Scheme (Hansard, 11 March 1996) Girls were first admitted to the Sixth Form in 1981, and the school has been fully co-educational since 1993.Barnard Castle | Junior and Senior Mixed Independent School | Durham | Guide to Independent Schools By 1992 there were around 610 pupils with an approximately 50:50 split between boarding and day pupils."Inquest into death of public schoolboy", Press Association, 22 September 1992. From 1993, as the result of a HMC initiative, Eastern European children were awarded scholarships to study at the school; by 1995, 8 per cent of the school's intake came from overseas. Michael Featherstone, a former England hockey international, was appointed headmaster in 1997, and the school enjoyed considerable academic success during his tenure.
School site
One of the North East's most famous schools, Barnard Castle is set in 50-acre grounds on the outskirts of town. It is located in Teesdale, and is within the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Giles Deacon has said of the location that "you could just walk out and you were in the middle of the Pennines". The Bowes Museum is situated next to the school. The school caters for pupils aged 4 to 18, with pupils younger than 11 being taught in a separate on-site preparatory school (Prep School). The original building is now used mainly for accommodation and administration and is described as "stately" by The Independent. The school spire is known colloquially as "The Pepperpot". It also contains the dining hall and "Main School", public school slang for the school hall. All teaching is undertaken in purpose-built classrooms. The school site contains tennis/netball courts, squash courts, a large sports hall and an AstroTurf pitch. A total of £3 million has been invested in the school's infrastructure since 2008, including a £1.5 million Physics and ICT block, a new hall for the Prep School and a new sports pavilion containing a gym and a dance studio. The school has been used as a filming location for the television sketch show The Fast Show.
Chapel The school's chapel was completed in 1911. It was designed by W. D. Caroe, and Nikolaus Pevsner described it as "impressive" both internally and externally.Pevsner, Nikolaus; Williamson, Elizabeth. County Durham, Volume 9. p.88. Somewhat unusually, it is oriented in a north–south direction. A large proportion of the funding to build the chapel was provided by Lord Barnard, the local nobleman and a leading freemason (with the remainder made up from public subscription), and accordingly the foundation ceremony was performed in full masonic regalia. The Grade II* listed building contains a painting by Ary Scheffer and a Father Willis organ. It has stained glass windows commemorating John Balliol and Benjamin Flounders, the two founders of the school. A roll of honour in the chapel commemorates the 141 former pupils and 4 Masters who died in the First World War, the 55 former pupils who died in the Second World War and one who died in the Falklands War.North East War Memorials Project There is a roll of honour in the main school building for the former pupils who died in the Second Boer War.
Barnard Castle Preparatory School The Prep School has access to all of the facilities of the senior school. It is situated in a separate area of the school grounds with its own organisation, staff and buildings. The school is sited around a main building called Westwick Lodge, "a sprawling Victorian villa with the modern dormitories and classroom block hidden at the rear. It [has] a long, sloping front lawn, thickly planted with shrubberies ... Round the back [is] a playground and a muddy hill with a few trees". Members of the Prep School are referred to throughout the school as "Preppies".
The school was founded in 1914 and was originally a girls' school, and independent from the County School. In 1989 there were just 65 pupils, all of them boys. By 2009 there were over 200 pupils, equally split between girls and boys. School on Saturdays was abolished at the Prep School in 1999.
School life
Intake 40 per cent of senior school intake comes from the state sector, and over 50 per cent come from the on-site Prep School. 25 per cent of Sixth Form pupil intake is from state schools. Day pupils commute from a wide catchment area that is predominantly rural in nature. These settlements are as far afield as Hurworth and Stanhope as well as larger settlements such as Kirkby Stephen, Durham, Bishop Auckland, Richmond and Darlington. Pupils are from a range of professional, managerial and farming backgrounds. There are 200 boarding pupils, significant numbers of whom have parents who are members of HM Forces, and many families are linked to nearby Catterick Garrison, Europe's largest military base.Layout 1 15 per cent of boarders have parents living overseas, particularly Hong Kong. An Open Day is held several times a year when the school welcomes prospective students and their families to tour the school.Barnard Castle School, Barnard Castle, Durham, Independent Schools
Academic and routine