217. Grenham House

Boys aged down to 7 were forced to enter a regime consisting of fear and corporal punishment. Today such a school would have been closed. A student died there. Fortunately while tragic caused by an illness and not the awful violence the employees were responsible for.

The boarding school is closed now. However it is still safe to state that it was not a place for children to stay while the school was in existence.

Sources:

• ‘Oh no, another rotten caning coming up’… Broadcaster John Suchet recalls grim time at boarding school (The Daily Mail)
• The only time that Poirot was beaten (The Daily and Sunday Express)
• Grenham House (Friends ReUnited)
• Louis de Bernières: Aged 8, I was sent to hell (The Times)

2021 update

An well-known author has come forward with his experiences at the school when he was a child.

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin author Louis de Bernières, 66, reveals ‘hellish abuse’ he suffered at hands of two ‘sadistic’ teachers at English boarding school (The Daily Mail Online)

158. Swaylands School

The now cosed boarding school which opened in the 1940s became the center of an investigation. It resulted in a number of arrests of former employees.

The full extent of the abuse case which took place for many years between 1967 and 1993 is yet to known.

But already it is safe to state that it could not have been fun to live at this boarding school as a teenager.

Sources:

• Man held over ‘large scale’ sex abuse at Swaylands School (BBC)
• Another arrest over historic sex abuse claims at Swaylands School in Penshurst (Kent Online)
• Further arrest in investigation into historic sexual abuse at Swaylands School in Kent (Leigh Day)