Gresham’s has excellent facilities spanning a 200 acre site, in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, just four miles from the breathtaking North Norfolk coast.
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Britten Building
Fantastic facilities and dedicated spaces are on offer in the Britten Building, where our Music department is based. This is where music lessons and practice takes place as well as having access to a suite of Apple Mac computers with state-of-the-art sequencing and notation software, linked to the most up-to-date digital mixing desk in the Music Technology Recording Studio.
As an All Steinway School, pupils also benefit from being able to learn and perform on world-class Steinway pianos.
Dyson Building
The Dyson Building opened at Gresham’s in September 2021. Sir James Dyson, a former pupil at the school, enabled the innovative new centre for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) education. Spaces are equipped with the latest technology, with art hubs, IT points and open-stair seating areas turning the spine of the building into an area for collaborative studies.
Sport
Our sporting facilities include astroturf pitches, a 25-metre indoor swimming pool, two sports halls, over 30 tennis courts, an indoor shooting range, six rugby pitches, a gym, athletics track and a cross country course.
In 2021, we upgraded our gym facilities and have installed a new strength and conditioning suite. To help pupils utilise these facilities, we created two new Strength and Conditioning roles. They will lead our approach to developing athleticism for all pupils as well as working with those within our Talented Athlete Programme.
Auden Theatre
The school has its own Auden Theatre (named after former pupil W.H. Auden) as well as the spectacular outdoor performance area; Theatre-in-the-Woods.
Outdoor Activity Centre
The new outdoor activity centre, features a 21 obstacle armed forces standard assault course; a 220 metre zip wire; a 22 element high ropes course; a 12 element low ropes course for younger children; abseiling facilities; a 20 person purposefully basic bunkhouse for use as a dorm, or teaching facility; and the centrepiece: the 28 metre ‘Bourdillon Tower’.
The tower is named in honour of former pupil Tom Bourdillon, and half of the two-man team that came within 300 feet of Everest’s summit, just three days before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first to successfully reach the top in 1953. Overcoming this early failure, Bourdillon became England’s greatest mountaineer in the immediate post-war era, and the first President of the Alpine Climbing Group. The school welcomed Jennifer Bourdillon, widow of Tom Bourdillon, to officially open the new facilities.
The outdoor activity centre is the first of its kind for a school in north Norfolk and offers all pupils a chance to learn outdoor pursuit skills. The facilities are used by Senior Schools pupils in the Combined Cadet Forces (CCF); team building tasks and induction days; and often for boarders as a weekend activity. The woods is also home to our Year 9 Survival Course, created by our Head of Adventure. The course is based loosely on a military escape and evasion exercise and sees pupils participating in shelter building, fire building, wild food preparation, open fire cooking, emergency first aid and escape and evade exercises.
Our Prep School often utilise the woods and facilities as part of their Activities Programme and Saturday School. The facilities make it the perfect place for our Prep pupils to have a campout. These evenings usually begin with fun on the outdoor course and zipwire and end with a barbecue, marshmallows and some spooky stories around the campfire – which of course they have helped to build and light. They then retire to the hammocks in the bunkhouse for a night in the woods.
The woods is also home to our Pre-Prep’s Outdoor Wild Learning School (OWLS). Weekly trips provide a stimulating environment where imaginations can run free, and creativity is enhanced. Activities here include everything from building grand hotels for mini-beasts and homes for teddy bears, to creating leaf presses and exploring nature trails.