Brentwood School

Brentwood School was founded in 1557 by Sir Antony Browne, a Justice of Common Pleas under Mary I, and opened the following year on its present 72-acre site on Ingrave Road in Brentwood, Essex. The original Tudor schoolroom — known as the "Old Big School" — still stands and is used today, alongside a Victorian chapel and several Grade II listed buildings. Brentwood is a member of the HMC, IAPS and AGBIS, and operates an integrated preparatory school (ages 3-11), senior school (11-16) and sixth form (16-19). It is co-educational using the "Diamond Model" — boys and girls educated separately from Year 7 to Year 11, then taught together in the sixth form. Boarding is offered for both boys and girls. Current enrolment is approximately 1,531 pupils.

The school's academic profile is broad rather than specialist, with consistent A-Level results and a steady record of Oxbridge admissions. The Church of England remains the religious affiliation, though the pupil body is now genuinely diverse. Several recent headmasters have been national education figures; the current headmaster, since 2019, is Michael Bond. The Chairman of Governors is Lord Black of Brentwood, himself an Old Brentwood.

Brentwood's most striking feature is its alumni list — "Old Brentwoods" — which spans literature, sport, politics, broadcasting and even the invention of British games. Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was educated here (his school nemesis Paul Neil Milne Johnstone provided the surname of the appalling poet Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz). Frank Lampard, Chelsea's all-time leading goalscorer and an England international, also attended; the school's football academy continues to feed Premier League sides. Sir Hardy Amies, dressmaker by appointment to Queen Elizabeth II, was an Old Brentwood, as was Colonel Sir Neville Chamberlain — the army officer who in 1875, while serving in India, devised the rules of snooker.

Politically the school has produced Foreign Secretary and Lord Chancellor Jack Straw, the Conservative Secretary of State for Health Andrew Lansley and the former editor of The Times Sir Peter Stothard. In broadcasting it produced Sir Robin Day, Noel Edmonds, Griff Rhys Jones and Bob Simpson; in sport, the boxing promoter Eddie Hearn and squash internationals Peter Barker and Daryl Selby.