A History Essay (Dark Blue Exercise Book)

A former Eton schoolmaster called Thomas Pellatt, who had married an heiress named Ellinor Thomas, bought the “Little Manor” called Durnford from the impoverished Rogers family in 1893.

Pellatt eventually went on to build Spyway for one of his daughters to run.“T.P” as he was known, converted the outbuildings of Durnford House into a preparatory school which became very famous.

T.P, along with his wife and two daughters, lived at Durnford Manor House. The school prepared exclusively for Eton, and was in its day seen as “progressive”. Many of the British aristocracy sent their sons to Durnford where they either adored or hated T.P.

He was a violent bully and could not abide sensitive boys or those who were homesick or did not excel at sport. Sons of German Counts and Barons appeared at Durnford in the years prior to World War I, and between the wars several members of foreign royalty, such as the King of Siam and the Hashemite princes.

The estate of Durnford stretched from a little settlement calledMount Pleasant, immediately north of the kitchen gardens of the school, to the cliffs at Dancing Ledge to the south.

The long straight bounds of this manor can still be seen at the east boundary of Spyway's grounds and the wall on the west side of Durnford Drove.

In 1910 Tom Pellatt got a quarryman to blast a swimming pool out of the rock at Dancing Ledge, near the water line, so that it could be filled up by the sea. He fixed a huge iron grille over the top, which was locked when the boys of the school were not actually using the bath; but the first storm took it away, and from then on it has been open to public use.

The boys (who included Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond books, and his brother) had to bathe in the nude. The Pellatts practised nudity in their garden, much to the amusement of the villagers.

So the grounds of Spyway were in the Durnford Estate and rented out to the farmer at Spyway Barn. Of the Pellatts’ two daughters one was beautiful, like Ellinor , and the other was not. The latter adored her father and wanted to run a school herself, but this was forbidden in those days by unwritten laws of what daughters of the upper class might do.

But when she married one of her father’s ex-pupils - one of whom Pellatt had been especially fond - she asked her father to build her a boys boarding school. Her husband, Nigel Chapman, would be the titular head, but she would actually run it.

TP built her Spyway house, putting in the diagonal glazing bars for which Durnford House and school were well known. The building was according to Mrs Hester Chapman’s specification: the school was to be small and intimate and totally dependent upon her. Hence its rather strange lay-out.

The marriage was more or less doomed to failure from the start, and Nigel began to look elsewhere for affection, and scandal and divorce followed at a time when divorce was something quite extraordinary.

Mrs Chapman left to live in London, becoming the world famous author of historical fiction under her own name Hester Chapman. All members of this remarkable family are now dead except for John Durnford Clayton, the son of the younger (beautiful) daughter of T.P, who died of an overdose of barbiturates. He sometimes visits the village.

Spyway School also used the Dancing Ledge swimming pool. Its uniform was grey flannel shorts, navy blue blazers and jersey and pale blue ties and caps. Durnford School wore grey with scarlet caps, ties and garters (as worn by Cub Scouts). Durnford School was founded in 1893, Spyway School in 1927.

When the Chapmans left in 1935, their school was sold to two brothers named Warner (Eric and Geoffrey), both of whom had been up to that time assistant masters at Durnford School. Under the Warners, the school took on a very Spartan regime: cold water, no soap, one blanket, no curtains.

In 1975, Eric died after becoming over excited on the touch line at a rugby match against another school and the death duties were so enormous that Geoffrey was forced to sell up in 1976 and retire to France.

The school premises were then sold to International House, and an international school was run there for some time in the late 1970s with boys from Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt.

The worsening political situation in the Middle East left the international school high and dry, so it was sold to AMI as a psychiatric unit for young people. The psychiatric unit changed the name to Langton House, dropping the old name of Spyway, which people in the village tend to prefer and use without thinking.

The name Spyway is derived from Spy Hill to the south. Durnford Drove, which is of course the ancient track way from the Cowleaze to the farm of Durnford which used to be in the centre of the village, leads to Spy Hill, and was therefore known in its southerly reaches as Spy Way.

Spy Hill gets its name from the smuggling activities in the little manor of Durnford during the period 1780-1870. The smugglers’ look-out was posted on this hill, which commands a good view of the surrounding countryside, and especially the cliff path from St Aldhelm’s Head to the lighthouse near Swanage.

This is the 'history' of Spyway, as available in the reception area at what is now known as Langton House.