Cripes! Boris’s old prep school sold to developer for £5million
WHEN Ashdown House confirmed last year that it would close its doors permanently, figures in the education world desperately tried to save the prep school, whose former pupils include Boris Johnson, the Earl of Snowdon and Homeland star Damian Lewis.
I can disclose that, to their fury, the 180-year-old school has, however, now been sold off to a property developer for about £5 million.
The Cothill Trust, which owns Ashdown House, has just exchanged contracts with the unnamed developer. The under-bidder was an educational establishment which offered £4.5 million.
‘It’s all terribly sad,’ a former parent tells me. ‘The school was run into the ground and the Cothill Trust refused to invest in its future.’
Former pupils are now alarmed by what the developer might do to the building in East Sussex. The facade and one archway are listed, but the rest, including the chapel and the science block, which was opened by Sir David Attenborough, can be knocked down.
‘The trust has not contacted alumni about having the opportunity of buying the Rolls of Honour, stained glass windows, leavers’ boards, etc,’ claims the parent. ‘A great deal of hostility still exists.’
Ashdown House was one of the best-known prep schools in the country and charged fees of £28,680 a year, but blamed the coronavirus pandemic for its closure.
Some of Ashdown’s alumni, however, will struggle to mourn its passing — particularly those who experienced the headmastership of the late Billy Williamson, who was said to have ‘charmed parents and flogged pupils with equal gusto’.
‘On one occasion our entire class was caned because a boy did something fairly petty and didn’t own up,’ recalled Lord Snowdon, who bore the courtesy title Viscount Linley while at the school.
His parents, Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon, removed him after he’d endured two years in Williamson’s care.
A spokesman tells me: ‘As a charitable organisation, the trustees based their decision for sale on what is in the best interests of the Cothill Trust and its group of five schools.
‘Assurances can be made that items of historical interest, such as the school honours boards, have been preserved.’