The Surrey County School
Cranleigh opened on 29 September 1865 with just 12 boys. The school was the creation of George Cubitt, MP for West Surrey, and the Reverend John Sapte, rector of Cranleigh, who wanted to provide a boarding school for the sons of farmers and the Surrey middle classes – families who could not afford Charterhouse or Eton but wanted something better than the local grammar school. The original buildings were designed by Henry Woodyer in a Tudor Gothic style using the local red brick, and the school has remained on the same site ever since.
Numbers grew quickly – from 12 to 150 within a year, and to 280 by 1892. A joint application with St Catherine's School, Bramley, secured a royal charter in 1898. The school survived two world wars and the social upheavals of the 20th century by adapting steadily. Girls arrived as day pupils from 1971 and as boarders from 1974; full co-education across all year groups followed in 1999. Around 960 pupils now attend across the senior and prep schools.
The Campus
The 280-acre campus sits about a mile north of Cranleigh village, at the foot of the Surrey Hills. The facilities are extensive: a sports centre with a 25-metre pool, a performing arts centre, an art school, and playing fields that stretch across the surrounding farmland. Cricket is a particular strength – the school has produced several county and international players, including Ollie Pope, the Surrey and England batsman who was in the first XI here before making his Test debut at 20.
Community and Character
Cranleigh has always had a different feel from the grander public schools. Its origins as a school for the rural middle class gave it a pragmatic, unpretentious character that persists. The link with the village remains strong – the school chapel serves as the village church, and the relationship between school and community is closer than at most independent schools of this size. Alan Rusbridger, who edited The Guardian for 20 years, and Eric Fellner, the film producer behind Working Title Films, are among the more prominent Old Cranleighans.
