Edgehill College

Edgehill College was a co-educational independent school located in Bideford, Devon. Founded in 1884 by the Bible Christian movement, Edgehill was one of a number of independent schools owned by the Methodist Church of Great Britain and was sister-school to nearby Shebbear College. It was traditionally the principal girls' independent school in the area, becoming co-educational in 1992. The Preparatory School was always co-educational, with boys boarding at Shawleigh beginning in 1969.

Not to be confused with Edge Hill University.

Edgehill College
The fire at the college in 2006
Address
Northdown Road

Bideford
,
Devon
,
EX39 3LY

England
Coordinates51.021°N 4.218°W / 51.021; -4.218
Information
Religious affiliation(s)Methodist
Established1884
Closed2008
Local authorityDevon
GenderCoeducational
Age1 to 18

Houses
Belvoir House, part of Edgehill College and a Rugby pitch

Pupils were assigned membership to competitive houses on enrolment. Since September 2003 until the school's closure these houses were named after local rivers: Tamar, Taw and Torridge. Prior to this the houses had been called Belvoir, Carisbrooke, Kiltrasna and Longfield, after the boarding houses which all girls were members of. It is also known that four competitive houses were named after famous female authors and these were Austin, Bronte, Elliot and Gaskell, with house colours blue, green, yellow and red, respectively. The competitive houses participated in sporting events as well as three annual inter-house festivals in drama, music, and poetry and public speaking. Before 2001 this system was also the basis of pastoral support with each house having a physical presence with a staff and recreational facilities.

Incidents

In 1994 the college open-air swimming pool was found to be structurally dangerous and slowly sliding down the hill it was located on. It was permanently closed and later demolished. A car park now lies on the former site.

On 5 March 2006, a fire caused costly damage to the main school. Another fire caused significant damage on 11 May 2008.

A third fire largely destroyed Kiltrasna House (derelict since 2005) on 30 March 2013.[1]

In 2007 Charlotte Shaw (Death of Charlotte Shaw), a pupil, died training for Ten Tors, when she fell into a brook on Dartmoor and was swept away.[2]

Closure

On 28 October 2008 it was announced by Methodist Education that Edgehill College and the neighbouring Woodard School, Grenville College, would merge to become Kingsley School at the beginning of January 2009. This was a response to difficulty and pressure placed on maintaining independent education in north Devon. The move was triggered by a fall in pupil numbers in both schools since education reforms in 1997, and by difficult economic circumstances both locally and nationally.

gollark: You can literally host a Mastodon instance off a server you have right now.
gollark: I don't see this sort of thing taking off. There is *already* decentralized social media which doesn't waste everyone's time and computing power on BlOCkChAin.
gollark: it seems to just be some random pointless project forking off another random pointless project.
gollark: ... is it?
gollark: I mean, ignoring the server for apparently 2 years then posting a random link without context is quite botish.

References
  1. "Firefighters tackle Kingsley School blaze in Bideford'". BBC. 31 March 2013. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  2. "Ten Tors drowning girl 'begged to leave trip'". BBC. 7 December 2009. Retrieved 7 December 2009.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.