Downside School
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| Motto | Apud bonos iura pietatis ("Amongst good people, there are rules of piety [worth more than riches]" Justinus, or :- "Among the Good, Piety is the Law".) |
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| Established | 1606 |
| Type | Independent day and boarding school |
| Religion | Catholic |
| Head Master | Dr James Whitehead |
| Chair | Dom Leo Maidlow Davis OSB |
| Founders | English Benedictine Monks in exile |
| Location |
Stratton-on-the-Fosse Somerset BA3 4RJ England Coordinates: 51°15′18″N 2°29′42″W / 51.255°N 2.495°W |
| DfE URN | 123910 Tables |
| Staff | c. 100 |
| Students | 425 |
| Gender | Coeducational |
| Ages | 11–18 |
| Houses |
Boys: Roberts Barlow Smythe Powell Girls: Caverel Isabella |
| Colours | Maroon and gold |
| Former pupils | Old Gregorians |
| School song | "Patriae domus decorem" |
| Website | www |
Downside School is a co-educational Catholic independent school for children aged 11 to 18, located in Stratton-on-the-Fosse, between Westfield and Shepton Mallet in Somerset, south west England, attached to Downside Abbey. The current headmaster, Dr James Whitehead, is the first lay Head Master in Downside's history.
Downside is run by lay staff and the Benedictine monks of Downside Abbey. Several monks work in the school as teachers and chaplains. The school is controlled by trustees who are the Abbot - or as at present, the Prior Administrator - and monks from Downside Abbey, with two external trustee monks.
The school is divided into six houses; five senior houses and one junior house, with both day pupils and boarders in the same houses. Each house takes its name from the Community's martyrs or benefactors:
Monks from the monastery of St Gregory's, Douai in Flanders, came to Downside in 1814. In 1607, St Gregory's was the first house after the Reformation to begin conventual life with a handful of exiled Englishmen. For nearly 200 years St Gregory's trained monks for the English mission and six of these men were beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929. Two of these monks, SS John Roberts and Ambrose Barlow, were among the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1970.
Imprisoned then driven from France at the Revolution, the community remained at Acton Burnell in Shropshire for 20 years before finally settling in Somerset in 1814. The Monastery was completed in 1876 and the Abbey Church in 1925, being raised to the rank of a minor basilica in 1935 by Pius XI. Attached to the Monastery, the School provides a Catholic boarding education for boys and girls between the ages of 11 and 18 years. During the 19th century Downside remained a small monastic school. It was Dom Leander Ramsay who founded the modern Downside and planned the new buildings, designed by Leonard Stokes, that opened in 1912 and now form two sides of the "Quad".
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Wikipedia