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Bedales Campus

J H Badley, founder of Bedales, moved the school to rural Hampshire in 1900 so that students would benefit from clean air and a close connection to the landscape. The 120-acre estate includes playing fields, orchards, woodland, pasture and a nature reserve; the countryside comes right to the heart of the schools.

An eclectic mix of buildings adds to the charm of the setting; they range from the modern, custom-designed classrooms at Dunhurst and Dunannie through to the grade-1 listed Lupton Hall and Memorial Library at Bedales (designed by Ernest Gimson and completed in 1921), and two, contemporary, award-winning buildings - Olivier Theatre (1997) and the Orchard Building (2005).

The three schools share the following facilities:

• Full-size, floodlit Astroturf (twelve tennis courts in the summer term)
• Sports hall with the floor space to take eight badminton courts and equipped with indoor cricket nets
• Superb modern indoor swimming pool
• Two gymnasiums
• Multi-gym
• Three hard netball/tennis courts
• Numerous grass pitches (17 acres of playing fields), incorporating cricket and football pitches.

Bedales has exceptional IT facilities with wireless coverage across the campus and students can have their own laptops configured for use with the school system.

June 2011 - update

Bedales Uncut

 


Many of you will have already noticed the school is looking somewhat different this year and it may even appear to you that the grounds’ staff have thrown away their lawnmowers. The reality is that this is entirely deliberate in a plan to minimise the amount of mowing to only that which is necessary and where we want to present a neatly mown effect. 

The aspiration is for the school to look more beautiful and to be more in tune with the Arts and Crafts movement which has been so important to Bedales over the years. You will see long grass and, in time, wild flowers in areas such as the Orchard, next to the Memorial pitch and in front of the Music School. Paths have been mown where people actually want to walk, but large areas will become hay meadows and will not be cut at all. Other areas will be cut but less often and kept longer. It is inevitably taking a bit of getting used to for students, staff, parents and, most of all, the grounds’ staff, and our plans have been somewhat hindered by the weather which has meant the grass has not grown normally this year, and has not enabled us to achieve the aspiration in full.

The new regime will be carbon positive and an environmental win for the school. Insects and small mammals will find a new series of habitats so it will be good news for biodiversity at Bedales while the reduction in fossil fuel consumption will be considerable. The noise of lawn mowing will be minimised which will contribute to maintaining a peaceful and tranquil Bedales.

So if you think the school needs a haircut, bear with us. This is a one year trial which will see a fluffier Bedales on Parents’ Day but one with a few more butterflies and bees. If we all like it, we can continue next autumn with bulb planting and wild flowers in addition to our scheme of planting new trees which is already underway.

Richard Lushington (with input from Matthew Rice)

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