School
Hanford School is a girls' boarding preparatory school located in Hanford, Child Okeford, Dorset, England, established in 1947 and located in a grade II* listed house built in 1604 by Sir Robert Seymer.
History
Hanford House was built in Jacobean style in 1604, or 1620,[1] and completed in 1623,[2] by Sir Robert Seymer, who was a teller of the Exchequer and who was knighted in 1619, and whose family had lived in Hanford for several centuries,[3] and the small Gothic chapel was built in 1650. Country Life magazine wrote in 1905 that "the chapel is a picturesque building with a high gable, pleasant to look at, and within are several memorials of the Seymers."[4]
In 1947, the house and grounds were bought by the Reverend and Mrs. Clifford Canning and converted to a school. Clifford Canning had been headmaster of Canford School.[5] In 1959, the school was taken over by their daughter, Sarah. In 1960, the building was listed as grade II*,[6] ten days after the nearby Church of St Michael and All Angels.[7] After retiring as headmistress in 2003, she handed the school over to the Hanford School Charitable Trust in 2004, which now runs it.[1]
Boarding pupils are split into two houses – Fan’s for year 8 pupils and Main House for all other years.
