Bablake School


Bablake School is a co-educational Independent school located in Coventry, England and founded in 1344 by Isabella of France, widow of Edward II, making it one of the oldest schools in the United Kingdom. Bablake is part of the Coventry School Foundation, a registered charity, along with King Henry VIII School, King Henry VIII Preparatory School and Cheshunt School. The current headmaster is Andrew Wright, who succeeded Mr John Watson following his move to Leicester Grammar School in 2019. Today Bablake is a selective, fee-paying independent school and a member of the HMC.

History

Started by Edward II's widow Queen Isabella in 1344, Bablake was a public school first sited at Hill Street in Coventry. Isabella endowed the Guild of St John with the Babbelak land on which was founded the St John's chapel and the Bablake school linked to it. Bablake church, now known as St John's, still stands adjacent to the school's original buildings. The school still holds concerts in the church, and has even sung Evensong there once. Many of the pupils were originally choristers of the church. The relationship continued through the figure of Edward Jackson, who from 1734 was both vicar of the church and headmaster of the school. The expansion of the Bablake site continued throughout the 14th century with the aid of further land granted by the Black Prince. In 1563 the school's principal benefactor, Thomas Wheatley, who had been mayor of Coventry in 1556, endowed it with much of his estate.
Wheatley had ordered some steel wedges from Spain. In their place, he received by mistake a chest of silver ingots. Unable to discover to whom this cargo rightly belonged, Wheatley decided to bestow it upon the school. In 1833 a new schoolroom and a house for the master were added. Two years later, after much mismanagement and extravagant spending, administration of the charities was removed from the Corporation, and Bablake came under the control of the General Charity Trustees. At this time there were twenty boys in the school. In 1855 this number increased to seventy. Even under the great F. W. Humberstone, who took over as headmaster in 1870, Bablake boys were largely confined to the premises and a most monotonous routine. Shortly after this Bablake expanded rapidly, incorporating three other local schools: Baker, Billing and Crow's School, Katherine Bayley's Charity School and Fairfax Charity School These, along with Wheatley, comprised the school's six principal benefactors, and gave their names to its six houses thereafter. In the 1890s, Bablake began to move to its current site in Coundon Road, where it continued as a public school with six all-boys boarding houses.
In the 1930s fifty acres of land on Hollyfast Road were purchased to expand the playing fields of the school. During the war, the school was evacuated to Lincoln. In the 1970s the first female pupil was admitted. The school had long ceased taking boarders; what had been the bedrooms became the Mathematics department, and the headmaster's house became the Geography department. In the late 1980s the school built its Modern Languages block; a few years later Bablake Junior School opened and in 2000 the English, Drama and Music block was completed, sited on what was originally the headmaster's garden.

Coat of arms

The arms of Bablake School are those of its principal benefactor, Thomas Wheatley: Sanguine a Lion Rampant Argent, on a Chief Or, Three Mullets of the second.

Layout

The Bablake site houses two schools: a junior school that takes children between year 3 and year 6, and a senior school that takes children between year 7 and sixth form. Although the junior school is formally independent, its intake generally move up as a group to the senior school. In the main school, there are blocks allocated to specific subjects, such as science, music, drama and English combined, and a languages block. The main school building contains rooms for history, geography, computer science, art, design & technology and maths. The school has a swimming pool and indoor sporting facilities on site including an indoor artificial climbing wall and fully equipped gym. It also has four tennis courts, which are used as netball courts at other times in the year. Off site there are four rugby pitches, hockey astroturf and a cricket square. The cricket pavilion, which housed the changing rooms, was hit by lightning on 28 June 2005, and was out of use until spring 2006. In the EDM – English/Drama/Music block – there is a large theatre and a rehearsal room which are both used for plays and music recitals.

Houses

The four modern-day houses of Bablake are:
House nameDate of establishmentCrestHouse colours
Wheatley1563Sanguine a Stag's Head OrMaroon and gold
Bayley1900Gules a Motte ArgentRed and white
Fairfax1896Azure a Crosslet ArgentSky blue and gold
Crow1894Sable a Corvus ArgentBlack and white

The two houses which are no longer extant are:
Former students, known as "Old Wheatleyans", include:
Part of the 2009 Christmas film Nativity! was filmed at the school.

Back in Time for School

The first three episodes of the 2019 series were filmed at Bablake School.