The Downs School, at Colwall , near Great Malvern, on the western slopes of the Malvern Hills in England.

A notable independent preparatory boarding school for boys. Old boys have included A.J.P. Taylor, Lawrence Burnett Gowing , and Nobel Prize winner Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin.

Auden at Downs

W.H. Auden spent three years teaching English at the Downs School (Autumn Term 1932-1935), and wrote some of his finest early love poems there: including This lunar beauty (formerly titled 'Pur', alluding to the Musa Puerilis); "Lay your sleeping head, my love"; "Fish in the unruffled lakes"; and "Out on the lawn I lie in bed" (the latter dedicated to headmaster Geoffrey Hoyland).

It was Auden's practice to sleep in a bed set up on the school's lawn, during the summer terms. His main rooms he named 'Lawrence Villa', after T.E. Lawrence.

Auden contributed a preface to the Catalogue of Oil Paintings by Past and Present Members of the Downs School. He also strongly influenced the school magazine, The Badger, and wrote the poem The Garrison (1970) for the school's 70th anniversary edition of the magazine.

Benjamin Britten and William Coldstream stayed with Auden at the school several times. Auden was married nearby, at Ledbury, in a marriage-of-convenience.

Other notable links

Julius Harrison composed a new cantata and sonata for the school's Jubilee.

The children's author Geoffrey Trease lived very near the school.

External link

• The Downs School

• Quality photos from the School in the 1930s