Bedales School

Bedales School is a public school (co-educational private school, boarding and day) in the village of Steep, near the market town of Petersfield in Hampshire, England. It was founded in 1893 by Amy Badley and John Haden Badley in reaction to the limitations of conventional Victorian schools and has been co-educational since 1898. Since 1900 the school has been on a estate in the village of Steep, near Petersfield, Hampshire. As well as playing fields, orchards, woodland, pasture, multiple sport pitches and a nature reserve, the campus also has two Grade I listed arts and crafts buildings designed by Ernest Gimson, the Lupton Hall (1911), which was co-designed, built and largely financed by ex-pupil Geoffrey Lupton, and the Memorial Library (1921). There are also three contemporary award-winning buildings: the Olivier Theatre (1997) designed by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, the Orchard Building (2005) by Walters & Cohen and the Art and Design Building (2017) also by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios. History The school was started in 1893 by Amy Garrett Badley and John Haden Badley. John had met Oswald B Powell after they had been introduced to each other by Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, whom they both knew from their Cambridge days. John said that Oswald and his wife Winifred Powell, were as important as Amy and him. A house called Bedales was rented just outside Lindfield, near Haywards Heath. In 1899 Badley and Powell (the latter borrowing heavily from his father, the Vicar of Bisham) purchased a country estate near Steep and constructed a purpose-built school, including state-of-the-art electric lighting, which opened in 1900. The site has been extensively developed over the past century, including the relocation of a number of historic vernacular timber frame barns. A preparatory school, Dunhurst, was started in 1902 on Montessori principles (and was visited in 1919 by Maria Montessori herself), and a primary school, Dunannie, was added in the 1950s.