Marlborough College (Marlborough)
Marlborough College is one of the most famous of England's public schools, and is set in the splendid Wiltshire town of Marlborough.
It stands just beyond the bottom of the wide High Street, past St. Peter's Church.
There is a mound in the grounds, which was an Iron Age burial site converted into the motte of a Norman castle. Legend says that it is within this mound that the great Merlin is imprisoned, ensnared by a young woman with whom he had become infatuted in foolish old age.
It is also said locally that Marlborough is really "Merlin's borough".
The college was founded in 1843, and contains the graceful 18th century Castle House, used for a century as a coaching inn.
The college library was designed by G.F. Bodley.
Old boys of Marlborough College include John Betjeman, poet and documentary film maker; Anthony Blunt, art historian and spy; R. A. Butler, politician; William Golding, novelist; James Robertson Justice, actor; Louis MacNeice, poet; James Mason, actor; William Morris, designer, writer and conservationist; and Siegfried Sassoon, poet.