History of Northbourne Park School

Northbourne Park has occupied Betteshanger House since 1934, but the estate’s story begins eight centuries earlier.

Eight centuries of Betteshanger

The manor of Betteshanger was granted to Hugo de Port in the late eleventh or early twelfth century, in recognition of his part in the defence of Dover Castle. The estate passed by marriage and inheritance to the Boys family in the early seventeenth century, then to the Morrice family in the early eighteenth.

In 1829, Frederick Edward Morrice commissioned the architect Robert Lugar to build a new villa at Betteshanger. Lugar was a leading figure of the Gothic Revival, and his work includes some of the most distinguished country houses in England and Scotland.

The Devey House

In 1850, Sir Walter James, 2nd Baronet since 1829, bought the estate. He first employed the architect Anthony Salvin, who altered the house’s interior, built new stables and a lodge, and rebuilt Betteshanger church in the Norman style in 1853 and 1854. Sir Walter took a hand in that work himself, carving some of the figurative stonework on the church pulpit; he was later described as a mason and carver of no mean ability.

In 1856, following his year as High Sheriff of Kent, Sir Walter commissioned George Devey to remodel the house itself. It was Devey’s first major commission, and the work established his reputation as the originator of the “Old English” country house style, a design built to look as though it had grown gradually over centuries: tall Elizabethan-style chimneys, seventeenth-century Dutch gables, and a tower with deliberately uneven stonework.

The Neo-Norman church of St. Mary was built in 1853 by Anthony Salvin.

The Neo-Norman church of St. Mary was built in 1853 by Anthony Salvin.

Rupert Brooke at Betteshanger

In September 1914, the poet Rupert Brooke arrived at Betteshanger as a Sub-Lieutenant with the Anson Battalion, Royal Naval Division, training on Lord Northbourne’s estate before deployment to Antwerp. He returned briefly to Betteshanger on 18 October 1914. Many believe he drew on his time here that winter when he wrote “The Soldier.”

“If I should die, think only this of me: that there’s some corner of a foreign field that is for ever England.”

Rupert Brooke, 1915

A school is born

In 1933, the 4th Baron Northbourne, Walter Ernest Christopher James, leased Betteshanger House to a new preparatory school. It opened in 1934 with five pupils, one of them his own son, later the 5th Baron, who described a school that had grown to about thirty-five pupils by the time he left. Among the school’s earliest pupils was the artist John Craxton, whose work was shown alongside his classmates’ at the Bloomsbury Gallery to national press acclaim.

The school became a limited company in November 1954. In April 1980, it merged with Tormore School in Deal to become Northbourne Park School.

The first five pupils at Northbourne Park, then called Betteshanger School, taken during the very first term. Lord Northbourne is pictured first on the left.

The first five pupils at Northbourne Park, then called Betteshanger School, taken during the very first term. Lord Northbourne is pictured first on the left.

A French connection

In the 1940s, the writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote a bedtime story for the young daughter of family friends in New York. Her name was Marie-Sygne Claudel, and she later became Lady Northbourne. He called the story Le Petit Prince.

Her connection to the family shaped the school’s future. The Section Française Bilingue, founded in 1991, grew from her wish to give French-speaking children the opportunity of life in a British boarding school.

The family today

Christopher George Walter James, the 5th Baron, maintained close links with the school throughout his life, working with the school’s Bursar and maintenance team to preserve the house’s listed status while allowing it to grow. He died in 2019. His eldest son, Charles, continues that connection today, and the Lady Northbourne is president of Northbourne Park School's governing body.

Betteshanger House and Park: A History (PDF)
The full account, in the words of the 5th Baron Northbourne.