St Michael's College, Tenbury

2025-10-16T14:41:35Z

82.144.246.151:

{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2019}}{{Use British English|date=February 2023}}
{{Infobox school
| name = St Michael's College
| image = File:St Michael's College, Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire, England.jpg
| image_size =
| alt =
| caption =
| motto =
| established = 1856
| closed = 1985
| type = [[Private schools in the United Kingdom|Private]] [[Preparatory school (United Kingdom)|Preparatory school]] [[Boarding school]]
| religion = [[Anglican]]
| founder = [[Frederick Ouseley|Sir Frederick Arthur Gore Ouseley Bt.]]
| medium =
| address = Oldwood Road
| location = [[Tenbury Wells]]
| city =
| district =
| postcode = WR15 8PH
| county = [[Worcestershire]]
| country = [[England]]
| coordinates = {{coord|52.287971|-2.612949|type:edu_region:GB_dim:100|format=dec|display=inline,title}}
| staff =
| capacity =
| gender = Co-ed
| lower_age = 8
| upper_age = 13
| houses = Gore, Ouseley, Fellowes and Nicholson
| colours =
| publication =
| free_label_1 =
| free_1 =
| free_label_2 =
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| website = http://www.smcsociety.co.uk/
}}

'''St Michael's College''' (the College of St Michael and All Angels) at [[Tenbury Wells]], Worcestershire, England, was founded by [[Frederick Ouseley|Sir Frederick Ouseley]] in 1856 as a boys' [[Preparatory school (United Kingdom)|preparatory school]]. Ouseley created the school to provide a model for the performance of Anglican church music. Choral services were performed daily in term time. The college possessed a library that contained rare books of international importance. Financial difficulties forced its closure in 1985.

The buildings were reopened as an independent international boarding school under the name of King's College Saint Michael's in 1990, before closing in June 2020 as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In August 2024, the site was bought by SIAS Education Group and Anglo Independence School. It re-opened as [https://sma-school.com/ St Michael Abbey School] in September 2025.

==History==
The school was founded in reaction to the decline of Anglican church music in the Victorian period. Ouseley sited it in a remote location so as to insulate it from the influence of London.<ref name="SMC"/> Designed by architect [[Henry Woodyer]], until its closure the school regularly sang 150 settings of evensong; it was the last educational establishment in England to sing the orders throughout the week. In the school chapel the choir is separated from the chancel by an ornate gilded screen topped by candles. The choir is backed by a [[Henry Willis & Sons|'Father' Willis]] [[Pipe organ|organ]], painted with a representation of St Michael defeating the dragon.

Recordings of the choir are listed in the [[British Library Sound Archive]] and are available on [[CD]] in back catalogue editions.<ref>[http://www.smcsociety.co.uk/nsarchive.htm National Sound Archive list] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20011103104810/http://www.smcsociety.co.uk/nsarchive.htm |date=2001-11-03 }} Retrieved 27 July 2009</ref> A recording of the final Evensong sung at the school in 1985 is found on the [https://www.recordedchurchmusic.org/ Archive of Recorded Church Music site]

The school chapel is now [[Church of St Michael and All Angels, Tenbury Wells|the parish church]] for the surrounding village of [https://www.st-michaels-village.co.uk/ St Michael's] which was created to support the creation of the school.<ref name="SMC"/>

Poet Laureate Sir [[John Betjeman]] spoke of the college, referring to:<ref name="SMC">[http://www.smcsociety.co.uk/history/the-college/ School history] Retrieved 27 June 2009</ref>

<blockquote>"……..the unique atmosphere of St. Michael’s College, Tenbury. I shall never forget my first impression of the place. There was the climb up from the little market town of Tenbury whence some of the lay clerks make their twice daily journey to Mattins and Evensong to lend men’s voices to the boys’ choir, and there before me stretched an enormous common. In the far corner, in a land of blossoming orchards and backed by the blue distance of Clee Hill, rose a chapel, seemingly as large as [[Lancing College Chapel|Lancing]].

Attached to it were Warden’s house, school buildings, cloister and dining hall, all in a style of the fourteenth century, re-interpreted in local materials for the nineteenth century by architect, Henry Woodyer.<ref name="SMC"/>

After Evensong, where the music was equal to that of the best cathedral choirs, and a walk round the buildings in the quiet of a Worcestershire evening, I visited the large dormitory, which runs almost the whole length of a building parallel with the chapel. Here Christopher Hassall read his poem to the boys and held them spellbound as the stars shone through the narrow Gothic windows in the gabled roof…………"</blockquote>

===School crest===
[[File:St Michaels College Tenbury.jpg|right|thumb|School crest]]
The crest on the school tie was a red broadsword on a blue background symbolising [[St Michael]]'s defeat of the dragon by its colour and the two kinks in the sword.

===Musical library===
Supported by friends of Ouseley,<ref name="SMC"/> the library contained such important articles as the original score of [[Henry Purcell|Purcell]]'s ''[[Dido and Aeneas]]'' and [[Handel]]'s own conducting score from the [[Dublin]] premiere of ''[[Messiah (Handel)|Messiah]]''. It was therefore a site of pilgrimage for musical scholars, including [[Benjamin Britten]] After the school's closure the library was transferred to the [[Bodleian Library]].

===Organists of the college===
{{div col|colwidth=48em}}
*John Capel Hanbury 1856 - 1857<ref name="SMC"/>
*[[John Stainer]] 1857 - 1859 (later organist of [[Magdalen College, Oxford]] and [[St Paul's Cathedral]])
*[[Langdon Colborne]] 1860 - 1874 (then organist of [[Beverley Minster]])
*Alfred Alexander 1874 - 1877 (then organist of [[Wigan Parish Church]])
*William Claxton 1877 - 1886<ref name="SMC"/>
*Walter J. Lancaster 1886 - 1889 (then organist of [[Bolton Parish Church, Greater Manchester|Bolton Parish Church]], Lancashire)
*Allan Paterson 1889 - 1893 (then organist of [[Malvern Priory]])
*James Lyon 1893 - 1896 (then organist of St Mark's Church, [[Surbiton]])
*Edgar C. Broadhurst 1896<ref>Cathedral Organists, John E. West. 1899</ref> - 1907
*M. Gordon Burgess 1907 - 1910
*J.P. Davis 1910 - 1911
*Norman Charles Woods 1911 - 1912
*Arthur Baynon 1913 - 1916
*Carlton Borrow 1917
*Vivian Stuart 1918
*[[Ernest Bullock]] 1919
*[[Heathcote Dicken Statham]] 1920 - 1926
*Stanley Thorne 1926 - 1931
*Laurence Crosthwaite 1931 - 1935
*Maxwell Menzies 1935 - 1952 (duties undertaken by Sir [[Sydney Nicholson]] from 1940 and C E S Littlejohn from 1941 while Maxwell Menzies was away in the armed forces)
*[[Kenneth Beard]] 1952 - 1959 (afterwards rector chori at [[Southwell Minster]])
*[[Lucian Nethsingha]] 1959 - 1973 (afterwards organist of [[Exeter Cathedral]])
* Roger Judd 1973 - 1985 (later Assistant Organist [[St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle]])
{{div col end}}

===Alumni===
The St Michael's College Society, an active [http://www.smcsociety.co.uk Old Boys and Girls society], from the original Frederick Ouseley foundation, and which in 2006 celebrated its centenary, holds a reunion meeting each year. Membership is open to all those with a connection to the 1856 -1985 College days.<ref>[http://www.smcsociety.co.uk St Michael's College Society]</ref>

Notable alumni include:
*[[Harold "Barehands" Bates]], [[Royal Navy]] officer
*[[John Blashford-Snell]], Explorer
*[[Stephen Glover (columnist)|Stephen Glover]], Journalist
*[[Jonathan Harvey (composer)|Jonathan Harvey]], Composer
*[[Christopher Robinson (musician)|Christopher Robinson]], Choirmaster and organist
*[[Clifford Rose]], Actor
*[[George Robertson Sinclair]], organist at [[Truro Cathedral|Truro]] and [[Hereford Cathedral|Hereford]] cathedral, friend of [[Edward Elgar]]
*[[Jolyon Jenkins]], journalist and broadcaster
*[[Martin Stokes]], ethnomusicologist
*Roger Brock, classicist<ref>{{Cite web |last=AHC |first=Faculty of |title=Dr. Roger Brock {{!}} School of Languages, Cultures and Societies {{!}} University of Leeds |url=https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/classics/staff/27/dr-roger-brock |access-date=2025-01-28 |website=ahc.leeds.ac.uk |language=en}}</ref>

==More recent history of the buildings==
The year after the college closed the school buildings were used as the set for the 1986 film, ''[[The Worst Witch (film)|The Worst Witch]]'' based on the novel by [[Jill Murphy]], starring [[Diana Rigg]], [[Tim Curry]] and [[Fairuza Balk]].

From 1990 to 2020 the buildings were occupied by '''King’s Saint Michael’s College''' which was an international boarding school with students from many countries. It closed in 2020.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.ludlowadvertiser.co.uk/news/18482436.will-happen-college-buildings/|title=What will happen to college buildings?|first=Adrian|last=Kibbler|work=Ludlow & Tenbury Wells Advertiser|date=28 May 2020|access-date=12 December 2021}}</ref> That school specialised in providing education to international students by providing an intensive English language course alongside the traditional curriculum of GCSEs and A Levels. The school also ran a University Foundation Course. During the months of July and August, Saint Michael's ran an English language summer school for students from around the world.

The buildings were bought in 2024. The newly formed '''[https://sma-school.com/ St Michael Abbey School]''' opened in September 2025.<ref>{{cite news |title=St Michaels College near Tenbury to reopen as new boarding school |url=https://www.ludlowadvertiser.co.uk/news/24539817.st-michaels-college-near-tenbury-reopen-new-boarding-school/ |access-date=26 October 2024 |work=Ludlow & Tenbury Wells Advertiser |date=28 August 2024}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://www.smcsociety.co.uk/ St Michael's College Society official website, specific to the original College]
*[https://sma-school.com/ St Michael Abbey School website]

{{Schools in Worcestershire}}
{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Michael's College, Tenbury}}
[[Category:1856 establishments in England]]
[[Category:Educational institutions established in 1856]]
[[Category:2020 disestablishments in England]]
[[Category:Educational institutions disestablished in 2020]]
[[Category:Choirs singing Anglican church music]]
[[Category:Defunct schools in Worcestershire]]
[[Category:Boarding schools in Worcestershire]]
[[Category:Tenbury Wells]]
[[Category:International schools in England]]

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St Michael's College, Tenbury