Wallace House was a Sherborne School boarding house from 1931 to 2026.
The private side of Wallace House, known originally as Elmdene, was built in 1897 by Isaac Orchard Trevett (1842-1925) in the grounds of his South Street ironmongery business Harden & Trevett. Isaac Trevett had married Emma Frost Harden (1843-1935) in 1869 and the initials of their surnames ‘T.H.’ and the building date 1897 can be see on the south front of the house.
From 1918 to 1920 Elmdene was home to Tom Richards and his family who appear to have run a hunting stables from the property. When Elmdene was put up for auction in 1920 the sale particulars provided a detailed description of the property:
‘A Substantially-built STONE RESIDENCE, having Slated Roof, well situated in the Centre of this well favoured Residential Town, within Two Minutes’ Walk of the Main Line Railway Station (London-Plymouth, L. and S.W.R.), One Minute from Post and Telegraph Office, close to Shops, and within easy reach of several excellent Schools, yet though in the Town enjoying a secluded position not to be surpassed in the most rural districts. The Residence, which has a Southern-Western Aspect, and is well sheltered from both North and East by high walls, is in excellent condition, and contains the following accommodation:
ON THE GROUND FLOOR. Entrance hall, Drawing room, Dining room, Study or Morning room, good Offices.
ON THE FIRST AND TOP FLOORS. 11 Bedrooms, Bathroom.
The GARDENS and GROUNDS, which comprise an area of over 1 Acre, are composed of excellent and very productive Kitchen Gardens, good Tennis Lawn, &c.
The STABLING comprises a Five-Box Stable (with Living room over), Motor House (with Pit).
GENERAL. This Property is highly recommended to those requiring a House for sporting purposes, as Sherborne is situated in a district hunted by six packs of Hounds, including the Blackmore Vale and Cattistock. The Town, in addition, enjoys exceptional Educational advantages. Gas and Water are laid on, and the Property is connected with the main drainage.’
Elmdene was run as a private hotel from 1920 until 8 December 1930 when the Headmaster of Sherborne School Charles Boughey purchased the property for £3,500. Charles Boughey rented Elmdene to the School Governors who in Lent term 1931 opened it as a waiting house for third formers, the majority of whom were destined to pass on to School House. A large wing was built on in the summer of 1931 providing accommodation for twenty-four boys.
Although Elmdene was only slightly damaged during the bombing of Sherborne on 30 September 1940, an unexploded bomb on the corner of Cheap Street and Half Moon Street caused the boys at Elmdene to be evacuated to the School House Reading Room where they slept for a week taking their meals in the San. The bombing cut off the house water supply which had to be supplied using a fire hose from Long Street across the brewery field [now Culverhayes car park] to the mains on Ludbourne Road. Two boys at Elmdene wrote accounts of their experiences during the bombing of Sherborne.
In 1952, boys at Elmdene carried out an archaeological dig in the kitchen garden where they discovered a disturbed Romano-British site. This discovery was adjacent to the site of a possible Romano-British circular hut found in 1951 in the Culverhayes car park. A Byzantine copper-alloy coin made in Cyprus between 1184-1191, featuring the Virgin Mary on one side and on the reverse the Emperor and St George holding a patriarchal cross, was also found in the garden at Elmdene.
Elmdene was finally brought into the School’s ownership in 1952 when the School Governors purchased the property for £4,250.
In 1977 the School Governors decided to convert Elmdene to a full-scale boarding house in order to reduce the numbers in School House which they considered too large. Renamed Wallace House in honour of former Headmaster Alexander Ross Wallace, the house was officially opened in Lent term 1978 with Jeremy Barker as housemaster and Stephen Hogg (a&e 77) as first Head of Wallace House.
On display at Wallace House is the nameplate of the Southern Railway Schools Class Locomotive 30906 ‘Sherborne’ which was given to the School in 1963.
Scenes for John le Carré’s A Murder of Quality (1991) were filmed at Wallace House in 1990.
Former Wallace boys include Simon Black (Director of The Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity and The White Ensign Association), Tom Bridegroom (actor, musician, model), Grant Bulstrode (Under 18 England Rugby International), Neil Bulstrode (consultant plastic and reconstructive surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital), Andrew Burns (Fleet Commander of the Royal Navy), Balthazar Fabricius (CEO of Fitzdares), Jonathan Fawkner (visual effects artist), Jack Galsworthy (in 2016 broke the world record with Freddie Wright for the youngest pair to row the Atlantic), Will Harding (Board of Ofcom), Aidan Hartley (author, journalist), Andrew Heffernan (Olympian equestrian), Henry Spencer (trumpeter, bandleader, composer), Giles Whittell (author, journalist, Deputy Editor-in-Chief at The Observer).
House letter: e.
House colours: red and navy.
House motto: Pro Libertate Sperandum Est (In freedom we must hope).
House magazines: Elmdene Chronicle.
Housemasters:
Elmdene (waiting house):
1931 Max Westlake (OS) (1895-1987)
1942 Arnold Andrews DCM (1895-1973)
1943 Vivian Green (1915-2005)
1946 John Melvin (1916-1999)
1948 Geoffrey Watkins (1907-1992)
1955 Timothy Brook (1906-1991)
1965 David Oldham (1932-1988)
1975 Jeremy Barker
Wallace House:
1978 Jeremy Barker
1988 Geoffrey Fisher
1993 Patrick Haigh
2005 Giles Robinson
2017 Andrew Nurton (OS)
2022 James Hull
2026 House closed.
Online Resources:
- Elmdene and Wallace house photographs
- Wallace house plays
- Housemaster Max Westlake’s Elmdene photograph album, 1930-1940
- Elmdene boys’ accounts of the bombing of Sherborne on 30 September 1940
- Housemaster T.C.P. Brook’s hints for new boys entering Elmdene, 1959 (pdf)
- Filming John le Carré’s A Murder of Quality in 1990, includes scenes filmed at Wallace House
- Southern Railway Schools Class Locomotive 30906 ‘Sherborne’
- A.B. Gourlay & D.F. Gibbs, Chief. A Biography of Alexander Ross Wallace 1891-1982 (Sherborne School, 1983)
- History of Sherborne School’s boarding houses
For further information about the Sherborne School Archives please contact the School Archivist
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