Opened November 1937 for boys of school age. School from 1945. Closed January 1957.

Click here to see an article by Victor King on his time at Beacon School, well his escape. Also some news on one old boys Mike Hatcher who may have a few old plate for sale.

The Beacon School for Dr. Barnardo’s Boys was built in the last twenty years of the Victorian era, foundations being laid about 1880, for Cambridge Don, Robert Wallis Hunt. He opened it as a private educational establishment for boys, and a number of pupils, who graduated from it, in its early years, were later to find fame. Amongst them were the poet, W. H. Orden and author Richard Cobb.

Two pupils who attended that establishment in the earlier years of the present century (1910 - 1918), were the two sons of Crowborough's most famous resident Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, born in 1859. Sir Arthur qualified professionally as a doctor in his early life, but he gave this up in 1890, when he published his first novel about fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, entitled "A Study in Scarlet." He was knighted in 1902 after writing his most famous piece of detective fiction: again it featured Sherlock Holmes, but this time it took the country by storm it was titled "The Hound of the Baskervilles."

Sir Arthur's home in Crowborough was Windlesham Manor, and he died there in 1930. His body was buried within the grounds of the house in which he had spent his declining years. Lady Conan Doyle was interned there also but later, both bodies were removed and reburied at an undisclosed spot, in the New Forest, Hampshire.

Beacon School for Dr. Barnardo Boys has one other, direct claim to fame, in the great, great, great grandson of the founder, Robert Wallis Hunt he is none other than James Hunt, the former Champion (World Champion) racing driver.

Dr. Barnardo History: Dr. Barnardo's Homes obtained the school, presumably by purchase, opening it as a school for Boys in 1937. It subsequently became a "proper school" - for boys of school age - in 1945. Barnardo's relinquished control in 1957, whence it became a centre for British refugees as a result of the Suez crisis of 1956. It later became a centre for the Royal National Institute for the Deaf, who renamed the building St. Anthony's. At the time of writing the school is, yet again, up for sale.

Researched by Peter Niven 1993