Taunton School - £2.3m Grange expansion (From This is The West Country)
Get involved! Send your photos, video, news & views by texting COUNTY GAZETTE to 80360 or email us
Taunton School - £2.3m Grange expansion
3:30pm Monday 6th February 2012 in News
Taunton School - £2.3m Grange expansion
Taunton School has bought a former old people’s home as it undertakes an ambitious £2.3million expansion.
The independent school is bucking the economic downturn and attracting more students to its international facility.
It plans to create a boarding house for up to 60 nine- to 14-year-olds at The Grange, in Kingston St Mary.
Workers are already on site converting the 19th Century listed building, which will be up and running by June.
Headmaster Dr John Newton said: “It is good to see the school expanding, even in these very difficult economic conditions.
“The education we offer prepares our young people for the challenges of the 21st Century.
“This development places the school in a strong position to bring a high quality educational experience to an even wider group of young people.”
Taunton School currently has 392 boarding students.
The Grange was built in 1862 by Sir George Gilbert Scott for Mr Steele Perkins and was visited by future Prime Minister Anthony Eden during his holidays.
It was later converted to provide 26 apartments previously used as an old people’s home.
The £2.3million bill covers the purchase of the property and conversion costs.
Comments(2)
TechnoCat
says...
9:51pm Wed 8 Feb 12
Lulu2011 wrote:Agreed, please read the story on the Taunton homeless, freezing half to death on the streets. Perhaps all your wealthy parents would care to adopt-a-homeless-per
What a ludicrous idea to buy a property that is so far away from the school campus. The boarders staying there will be too remote from the rest of their contemporaries to be truly part of what, at the moment, at least at the prep school is a really homely and inclusive environment. This boarding house will create a divided boarding community and this will have an adverse effect on the whole school. These boarders will have to be ferried to and from school and it will be difficult for them to socialise "out of hours" with the rest of the boarders.
son, and fund their resettlement into a nice old building like this?. Once settled, they could be rehabilitated and perhaps guided back into finding their own homes. All of you pupils would grow up to be far better members of our society if you developed a social conscience early on.
Lulu2011 says...
9:19pm Mon 6 Feb 12