Thorngrove School founder Connie Broughton writes book on its history and donates £3,000 proceeds to The Brain Tumour Charity

One of the founders of a North Hampshire prep school has written a book about its history and has donated £3,000 from book sales to charity.

Connie Broughton and her husband Nick set up Thorngrove School in Highclere in 1988 and went on to run the school for 21 years before both stepping back in 2009.

Mrs Broughton has discussed why she decided to write the book, which is titled “An Interesting Experiment” The Founding of Thorngrove School.

She said: “Lots of people don’t really know now how it started with 14 kids—four of those our own—and all the trials and tribulations we went through to get it established.

“There were lots of highs, and probably more lows at the time, but it has succeeded so that’s good.”

Mrs Broughton started on her book during the pandemic before leaving it for some time and then revisiting it in 2023.

She finished it in a period of about six months, which involved trawling through Thorngrove’s archive to find all the different photographs contained within.

300 copies of the book were printed, and after selling them all for £10 each, £3,000 was raised, all of which was given to The Brain Tumour Charity.

Last December, Thorngrove donated over £40,000 to The Brain Tumour Charity after a year of fundraising after a Year 8 pupil was diagnosed with a brain tumour the previous year.

The Broughtons are still involved with the school as they live on the site, three out of their four children teach there and all 10 of their grandchildren attend Thorngrove as pupils.

Mrs Broughton said she was “very proud” that the school was still a Broughton family affair.