Gresham’s may be situated amid 200 acres in the far, eastern reaches of north Norfolk, just four miles from the glorious coastline, but the school – which was originally founded as a grammar school in 1555 by Sir John Gresham after the Reformation closed the only local source of learning – provides East Anglian parents with a truly top public school (it offers both the IB and A levels) that has the stated aims of providing its pupils with ‘an enlightened education which celebrates British values in a Christian setting’.
Its theatre, the Auden Theatre – the poet was a pupil, as were composers Benjamin Britten and Lennox Berkeley, poet Stephen Spender, director Stephen Frears and actress Olivia Colman, plus inventor Sir James Dyson – which last term celebrated its 20th anniversary, is justifiably famous, school productions attracting a genuine public audience beyond parents. It’s set in 200 acres in an AONB and has a rifle range (shooting is big here).
- 480 pupils aged 13–18, day and boarding (plus prep school)
- £3,350–£11,660