Combe Bank School

The Grade I listed Palladian House by Roger Morris, was built for Col. John Campbell and modelled on the Argyll family seat of Inverary. It became in the early 19th century the boyhood home of Henry, later Cardinal, Manning, and later of William Spottiswoode, the King’s printer. 1907 saw the estate purchased by Ludwig Mond of the British chemical engineering giant ICI. The difficult economic climate of the 1920s saw the 518 acres of the estate sold in seventeen lots, sold in three tranches. For the founding of a convent and school, the House and grounds were purchased by the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. During the World Wars Combe Bank provided convalescence for the wounded, latterly…