Harper House has been in continuous use as a school boarding house since 1873.
The private side of Harper House, originally known as The Retreat, dates from the 18th century and was once the property of the Digby family, with early tenants including a branch of the Toogood family.
In about 1820, the freehold of The Retreat was purchased by John Mills Thorne (1786-1865), a banker and School Governor who owned the Sherborne Brewery in Long Street. In October 1829, Thorne announced that he was setting up business as a wine and spirit merchant with a ‘counting house’ in Hound Street. Thorne also purchased the land to the south of The Retreat and created an extended garden with a serpentine driveway and an entrance on Long Street. When The Retreat was sold by auction on 7 August 1839 the sales particulars described the property as a desirable and comfortable residence ‘mainly new built’ by Thorne ‘in the most substantial manner, and no expense has been spared to render it handsome and convenient.’
Other former residents of The Retreat have included John George Bergman (1814-1882) and his wife Sarah (née Le Keux) (1815-1888) who lived at The Retreat c.1851-c.1862 when five of their sons attended Sherborne School, also Joseph Tanner (1830-1908) and his wife Adelaide (née Waters) (1830-1898) who lived at The Retreat c.1864-1866. Five of the Tanner boys attended Sherborne School, one of whom, Herbert Waters Tanner (1854-1867), is commemorated by a memorial window in the School chapel.
In the early 1870s the Rev. John Blanch (1842-1907), a mathematics master at Sherborne School, purchased the freehold of The Retreat and opened it in 1873 as a school boarding house, having built-on accommodation for 25 boys. The Rev. Blanch later purchased for use as a kitchen garden the walled garden lying to the west of the property which included the Shell House. The southern section of the house garden that led down to Long Street was sold in about 1896.
In 1910, when Old Shirburnian Rev. William James Bensly (1874-1943) purchased the property and took over as housemaster he renamed the property Harper House in memory of former Headmaster Hugo Daniel Harper.
Additional boarding accommodation was built in 1913 by housemaster Kenneth Bassett Tindall (1884-1976) which allowed for a considerable increase in numbers.
On 27 June 1922, the Shakespearean actor-manager Ben Greet and his company of players put on a production of The Tempest in the garden at Harper House, where ‘the charm of the place lent atmosphere to the fairy story, but neither the pleasant surroundings nor even the strains of the Town Band playing in the distance, whose melodies were often out of harmony with the scenes, were sufficient to divert the mind from the excellence of the acting and the nobility of the theme.’
Until 1930, Harper House was owned privately by successive housemasters, but in November 1930 the School Governors purchased Harper House from the housemaster Reginald William Macfarlane-Grieve MC (1887-1934) and in return rented the property back to him.
During the Second World War, air raid shelters and trained fire squads were set up in all of the School’s boarding houses. At Harper House, the Senior boys’ refuge room was on the ground floor in a large passage space in the centre of the building, and the Junior boys’ area was the changing room. When Sherborne was bombed on 30 September 1940, although the house did not receive a direct hit, a bomb fell in a field 40 yards away throwing large stones and soil onto the house and garden damaging the roof and the upper dormitories. Afterwards, the boys wrote accounts of their experiences during the bombing on 30 September 1940. In 1941, reinforced ARP brick shelters were provided for all the boarding houses, one of which still survives in the housemaster’s garden at Harper House.
New studies were built in 1971-1972, and the property was refurbished in 1994-1995 with the addition of new study bedrooms, modern facilities for showering, changing and storing sports kit, a warm oak-panelled reading room/library, a television room, large common rooms, small kitchenettes, and an environmentally-friendly boiler.
In March 1999, King Mswati III of Swaziland, who boarded at Harper House when he attended Sherborne International College (1983-1986), planted a maple tree in the garden.
A portrait of Cecil Day Lewis (1904-1972), painted in 1964 by Kenneth Green (1905-1986), is on display in the house.
Harper House is a Grade II Listed Building (list entry no.1324351). The boundary wall along Hound Street is Grade II Listed (list entry no.1324370).
In the former kitchen garden to the west of Harper House is the Shell House, a Rococo-style summer house thought to date from around 1750. The Shell House is a Grade I Listed Building (list entry no.1392618).
Former Harper boys have included Tony Bethell (the youngest man to take part in the Great Escape from Stalag Luft III), Hugh Bonneville (actor famous for Downton Abbey & Paddington), Christopher Chataway (politician, television journalist, track athlete, represented GB at the 1952 and 1956 Olympic Games, pacemaker in 1954 for Roger Bannister when he became the first person to run the mile in under 4 minutes), V.C. Clinton-Baddeley (author and dramatist), Cecil Day-Lewis (poet laureate), James Daunt (founder of Daunt Books and managing director of Waterstones), Bill Evans (Wales Rugby International), Robin Irvine FRS (biochemist), Admiral Sir Horace Law (Controller of the Navy, 1965-70), Max Lindley (astronomer, Director of the BAA Variable Star Section), Peter Oborne (author, journalist and broadcaster), John Pardoe (politician), James Purefoy (actor), A.W.F. Rutty (Surrey cricketer), Christopher Stanger-Leathes (England Rugby International), Basil Wright (documentary film maker).
House letter: d.
House colours: light blue and black.
Dormitory names (named by Phil Jones after Welsh rivers): Towi, Usk, Teifi, Cothi, Dovey.
House magazines: The Critic, The Harpoon.
House cricket team (played local villages): The Harpoons.
Housemasters:
1873 John Blanch (1842-1907)
1901 Thomas Alfred Bell (1864-1940)
1910 William James Bensly (1874-1943) (OS)
1913 Kenneth Bassett Tindall (1884-1976)
1920 Armine Wodehouse Fox (1869-1947)
1929 Reginald William Macfarlane-Grieve MC (1887-1934)
1934 Ralph Mitford Marriot Barlow (1904-1977)
1948 John Melvin (1916-1999)
1959 Derek Bridge (1921-2012)
1974 Anthony Rouse (1935-2005)
1983 Philip Jones
1994 Charles Allen
1999 Simon Tremewan
2010 Jeremy Wadham
2020 Nicholas Scorer (OS)
Online Resources:
- Harper House photographs
- Harper House team photographs
- Harper House roll of honour
- Harper House rules, c.1920 (pdf)
- Harper House supper programme, 17 December 1923
- Harper House boys’ accounts of the bombing of Sherborne on 30 September 1940
- Tony Bethell and the Great Escape from Stalag Luft III
- Film: ‘A Year at Sherborne, 1965-1966’ by David Hardiman of Harper House (YouTube)
- Harper House handbook, 2025
- The Shell House
- History of Sherborne School’s boarding houses
For further information about the Sherborne School Archives please contact the School Archivist
Return to the School Archives homepage