Lancing College

Lancing College is an independent boarding and day school in southern England, UK. The school is located in West Sussex. Lancing was founded in 1848 by Nathaniel Woodard and educates c. 600 pupils between the ages of 13 and 18; the co-educational ratio is c. 60:40 boys to girls. 

The college overlooks the River Adur, and the Ladywell Stream, a holy well or sacred stream within the College grounds, has pre-Christian significance. Woodard’s aim was to provide education “based on sound principle and sound knowledge, firmly grounded in the Christian faith.” Lancing was the first of a family of more than 30 schools founded by Woodard.

Roughly 65% of pupils are boarders, at a cost of £37,065 per year; c. 35% are day pupils, at a cost of £25,320 per year. 

The school is a member of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference. Girls were first admitted in 1970. The school is dominated by a Gothic revival chapel, and follows a high church Anglican tradition. The College of St Mary and St Nicolas (as it was originally known) in Shoreham-by-Sea was intended for the sons of upper middle classes and professional men; in time this became Lancing College, moving to its present site in 1857.

The school’s buildings of the 1850s were designed by the architect Richard Cromwell Carpenter, with later ones by John William Simpson.

In 2003, it was one of fifty of the country’s leading independent schools which were found guilty of running an illegal price-fixing cartel which had allowed them to drive up fees for thousands of parents. Each school was required to pay a nominal penalty of £10,000 and all agreed to make ex-gratia payments totalling three million pounds into a trust designed to benefit pupils who attended the schools during the period in respect of which fee information was shared.

Address : College, Lancing BN15 0RW, United Kingdom