Accommodation
Loveday House can accommodate 100 boys. The Fourth Form are in dorms of three, four or five boys with day boys and boarders mixed up. The dorms form important work, social, sleep and changing space.
The biggest difference between Loveday and all of the other Houses is that boarders move into single studies after their first year and for the remaining four years. Day pupils will be in rooms of two after the Fourth Form.
Common room spaces are for all, and in Loveday the only separation that occurs (by year group) is in the kitchen areas – or moabs, as the boys still call them – so that the boys can gain access to the toasters and microwave at break times.
We have both pool and table tennis tables and there is a TV room equipped with a huge smart TV and Sky+. Matron’s room is like the kitchen at home and the hub of the house. Matrons can take care of pretty much anything!
Loveday has a second site, known as High Upfold, some 50 yards from the Main House. A different senior year group is in High Upfold each term and everyone spends some time there during their journey through Loveday. The centre-piece here is the common room, which is an 18th-century barn, and a magnificent space.
There is a resident Deputy Housemaster on-site and he has responsibility for the day-to-day supervision of the boys here. The boys love to be in High Upfold! It is a system that reinforces the friendships already established within the year group and turns them into a very tight-knit, cohesive group.
We are fortunate to have some of the very best outside spaces in the form of the Wilson Quad (right in the middle of the House) and Loveday Field behind us. We use the quad for callovers, socials, BBQs and music evenings, etc. in the sunnier months and Loveday Field is open to all year groups to use for football and touch rugby – it’s just for us!
History
Loveday is a boys’ house of 100 boarders and day boys situated on old farmland between North and High Upfold. It is named after David Loveday, the Bishop of Dorchester, who was Cranleigh’s headmaster between 1931 and 1954.
Opened in 1980, it was planned after meticulous consultation with housemasters and more than 20 other independent schools. Its design was ground breaking, centred around a large, open-air quad (the Wilson Quad, named after the ex-Housemaster, former Head of the Prep School and current Head of Cranleigh Abu Dhabi) with the aim of creating a far more homely feel.
When the house structure was changed in 1999-2000, Loveday absorbed West and underwent some minor changes, with the main expansion being taking over High Upfold Barn next to the stables in what are converted farm buildings. The merger did allow Loveday to abandon the unloved brown it had used for its first two decades and switch to the red West brought with it.
Loveday is now co-educationally twinned with Rhodes House.