Eton College
The small town of Eton sits just across the river from Windsor, and is famous for its boarding school Eton College. Educating 1,200 boys, it is one of the oldest, most exclusive and expensive private schools in Britain. Famous past scholars include Princes William and Harry, and Prime Minister David Cameron.
Eton was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI for 70 poor children to receive free education, and to feed into his own King’s College, Cambridge. However, over the years it became the school for the wealthy and privileged. Many boys were registered before they were even conceived! The writer Aldous Huxley described the scholars as ‘the cream of society, very thick and very rich’!
Apart from usual faculties, Eton boasts a drawing school, music school, observatory, concert hall, theatre, natural history museum and 9 golf courses! Dutchman’s Fields is the name given to the extensive sports grounds, to which the Duke of Wellington once famously referred: ‘The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.’ The architecture of the school retains a medieval atmosphere, covered in heraldry and graffiti! Particularly worth visiting is the Gothic Chapel, the Lower School - which features the world’s oldest classroom, and the Museum of Eton Life.