Ravenscroft School, Somerset

Ravenscroft School (founded 1931 at Yelverton, Devon, and until 1978 known as Ravenscroft Preparatory School) was an independent day and boarding school, initially for boys only, but from 1964 co-educational. From 1945 onwards its premises were in Somerset, England. It closed in July 1996, when most staff and pupils transferred to the new Farleigh College.

Ravenscroft was founded by Mr Henry F. Bailey as a preparatory school for boys at Yelverton, Devon, in 1931. In the course of its existence, it had at least three different homes.

Its first home was a house at Yelverton called Ravenscroft House, on the edge of Yelverton Common, with views over Dartmoor. This was previously known as 'Hayesleigh' and is now the Ravenscroft Care Home. In 1941, during the Second World War, a new but temporary Royal Air Force airfield called RAF Harrowbeer was constructed on part of Roborough Down close to Yelverton, and Ravenscroft House was requisitioned to become the officers' mess. The school closed at Yelverton, and Mr Bailey left to teach temporarily at the Junior School section of Monkton Combe School from 1942 to 1944.

In 1945, with his wife Mary, H. F. Bailey re-established his own school, at Beckington Castle in the village of Beckington, Somerset. This had previously been the home of Captain John Hamilton, Coldstream Guards, later 3rd Baron Hamilton of Dalzell, and it was the birthplace of his second son the politician Archie Hamilton, Baron Hamilton of Epsom. From 1951 to 1957, the deputy headmaster was the Rev. Edmund E. Bromwich, who was also Rector of Wanstrow.

About 1961, Bailey sold the school to a Mr Grantham Hill, and in January 1963 it was taken over by Mr and Mrs J. F. R. Gillam. By May of that year they had announced that they had opened a Kindergarten, as well as preparing older boys for the Common Entrance Examination.

In February 1966, a major fire began in the Castle's boiler room and parts of the interior were destroyed. The school closed for a week, then continued to operate in its outbuildings while the extensive damage was made good.

An old boy, Olympic rower Hugh Wardell-Yerburgh, visited the school in 1968, and Edward Henderson, Bishop of Bath and Wells, spoke warmly of it as guest speaker at its prize day in June of that year.

In 1970, growing numbers of pupils led to a move to a larger country house called Farleigh House, near the village of Farleigh Hungerford. It had previously been owned by Earl Cairns and members of the Hely-Hutchinson family, a branch of the Earls of Donoughmore.