History of School

Located in Hertfordshire, about twenty miles Northwest of the City of London, the school stands on the site of the palace of the Plantagenets built by Queen Eleanor of Castille in the 13th Century. This gave Kings Langley its name. Edward I established a Dominican Friary at Kings Langley in 1308, which flourished at the top of Langley Hill until the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII: the remains of the Dominican Friary are in the school grounds. The present Priory is all that is left of the buildings that were once said to have been as fine as Westminster Abbey.  

The Priory School, as it was first known, was built around the ruins of the old Friary in 1900. It was a boarding school for boys and girls, and between the First and Second World Wars the staff developed an interest in the principles of Rudolf Steiner.  Many local inhabitants still refer to it as the New School, which was the name adopted when the school was incorporated in its present form close to the Priory in 1949. Since then, Rudolf Steiner School Kings Langley has expanded over much of the old Friary lands, occupying about ten acres of this fine elevated site overlooking rural landscape.

The main school block was built in stages between 1955-75, the dining room and theatre in 1969-71 and the sports hall in 1970. The beautiful kindergarten was built on the edge of the grounds near Friarswood in 1966. The latest addition is the Pottery, which was opened in 1991.