A new private boarding school could open at a historic former university campus in South West London. Thomas’s College plans to open at the Richmond Hill campus in September next year, which is home to an 1840s Grade II listed building and seven other buildings in five acres of landscaped gardens.
Thomas’s London Day Schools, a group of private schools, has submitted plans to expand by opening the new boarding school on Queen’s Road to Richmond Council. The school would initially open for students in years 7 to 12, before building to a capacity of up to 630 pupils up to year 13. There would be boarding accommodation for up to 50 pupils, along with facilities including music practice rooms, offices, a gym, games court, dance studio, café and drama room.
Internal alterations would be made to the main Grade II listed building on the site under the plans, including the removal of a small number of walls, so it could be used as the secondary school. Another building on the site would be used as a sixth form centre and offices. No new buildings or external works to the existing buildings are proposed.
The plans also involve making the main school building mostly accessible for the first time by creating a suitable entrance at the main doors for wheelchair users, adding accessible toilets and installing two new lifts. The works needed to open the new school require planning permission and listed building consent to go ahead, which are covered by separate applications submitted by Thomas’s.
The site was originally Richmond Theological College, which opened in 1843 and shut in 1972. The American Institute for Foreign Study then bought the campus, which became Richmond American University London until it relocated to Chiswick in 2022. Thomas’s bought the site last year.
Thomas’s already has a secondary school, known as Thomas’s Putney Vale, for students aged 13 to 16. This would close in summer next year under the plans, with pupils and staff transferring to Thomas’s College. Thomas’s also has four prepatory schools, a preschool and primary school.
A brochure from Thomas’s outlining the plans said the move would allow ‘the provision of full secondary education… on one unique and historic site, in a location that is unparalleled for a London school’.
The brochure added: “The purchase of this site provides an excellent new co-educational secondary school in London for students aged 11 to 18, settles the structure and strategy of Thomas’s and fulfils a long-standing ambition to give our current pupils the opportunity to continue a world-class Thomas’s education throughout their school lives.”
Richmond Council will make a decision on the plans in due course.
