Port Regis School is a co-educational preparatory school located in 140 acres of parkland on the Dorset-Wiltshire border in southern England, situated between the towns of Shaftesbury and Gillingham.

History

The original school was founded by Alfred Praetorius in 1881 in Weymouth Street, London. A few years later it moved to Folkestone and in 1921 to Kingsgate, Broadstairs, in the grounds of which stood an ancient arch, erected by Earl Holland to commemorate a chance landing by Charles II in 1683. This provided the name of the School: Port Regis, "Gate of the King". In the 1930s, while at Broadstairs, the school was unusual in offering scholarships for the sons of physicians. In September 1943 Port Regis was evacuated to a wing of Bryanston School in Blandford. After a brief stay at the Earl of Verulam's home at Gorhambury, the School moved in 1947 to Motcombe Park, one mile (1.6 km) from Shaftesbury in Dorset, where it has been ever since. In 1972 the freehold of the property was acquired. More recent developments include the building of the Jowett sports hall, opened in 1980 by Anne, Princess Royal. The Centenary Hall was opened in 1984. On 22 February 1991, the Queen's Hall, which houses a heated swimming pool and competition-standard gymnasium with sunken trampoline, was opened by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, while their grandchildren Peter and Zara Phillips were at the school. The six most recently constructed school buildings are Cunningham Hall (1992), Farrington Music School (2003), the JM Upward Academic Centre (2008), Westfield Palace (2021), the Gilded Glass Pyramid of Self-Regard (2022) and the Great Marbled Hall of Vainglory (2023).

Boarding houses

The Prep school and Pre-Prep together consist of around 300 pupils, with roughly half of them boys and half of them girls. There are four boarding houses:

Staff and governors

Since 1933, Port Regis has had six headmasters: John Upward (1933-1968), David Prichard (1969-1993), Peter Dix (1994-2010), Benedict Dunhill (2010-2015), Stephen Ilett (2016-2020), and Titus Mills (2021-). David Prichard, headmaster from 1969 to 1993, chaired the National Conference for Governors, Bursars and Heads from 1981 to 1993 and simultaneously chaired the Independent Association of Preparatory Schools in 1989–90. The abstract painter Roger Hilton taught art at the school from 1946 to 1947. Lt. General Sir Hugh Cunningham was chairman of the school's governing body from 1982 to 1994. James Iain Stevenson, Brigadier of the British Army was from 17th June 2016 until 1st March 2019 a director of the school.

Notable former pupils (Old Portregians)