Downs School
The Downs School, at
Colwall, near
Great Malvern, on the western slopes of the
Malvern Hills in
England.
A notable independent preparatory boarding school for boys.
Old boys have included
A.J.P. Taylor,
Lawrence Burnett Gowing, and
Nobel Prize winner
Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin.
W.H. Auden spent three years teaching
English at the Downs School (Autumn Term
1932-
1935), and wrote some of his finest early love poems there: including "This lunar beauty" and "Out on the lawn I lie in bed" (the latter dedicated to headmaster Geoffrey Hoyland).
It was Auden's practice to sleep in a bed set up on the school's lawn, during the summer terms. His main rooms he named 'Lawrence Villa', after
T.E. Lawrence.
Auden contributed a preface to the
Catalogue of Oil Paintings by Past and Present Members of the Downs School. He also strongly influenced the school magazine,
The Badger, and wrote the poem
The Garrison (1970) for the school's 70th anniversary edition of the magazine.
Benjamin Britten and
William Coldstream stayed with Auden at the school several times. Auden was married nearby, at
Ledbury, in a
marriage-of-convenience.
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Alan Hodgkin -
neuroscientist and
Nobel laureate*
Frederick Sanger - double
chemistry Nobel laureate
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A.J.P. Taylor - notable historian
*
Orlando Bloom - actor
Julius Harrison composed a new cantata and sonata for the school's Jubilee.The children's author
Geoffrey Trease lived very near the school.
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The Downs School*
Quality photos from the School in the 1930s
