Kingscote School for Girls
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Kingscote School for Girls is a fictional girls' boarding school created by Antonia Forest, the pen name of Patricia Rubinstein, where four of her Marlow family books are set.
It is located in Wade Abbas - a fictional town elevated to city status by the presence of Wade Minster, a cathedral. The books were initially set in a mythical landscape taking in elements from all over southern Britain, from Sussex to Pembrokeshire, and Forest said that she had based Wade Minster itself on Chichester Cathedral. However, since her "Player's Boy" and "Players and the Rebels" are set in a semi-fictionalised version of Dorset, one could argue that Wade Abbas the town is based on Wimborne. It might also be based partially on Wells - in one of the later Marlow books, The Attic Term (1976), there is a hippie settlement in the town, which might well genuinely have happened in Wells because of its proximity to Glastonbury. However, the "Abbas" in the name of the town suggests strongly that the writer had Dorset in mind.
Kingscote, though a boarding school, is based in many ways on Forest's own (day) school, South Hampstead High School, which she attended between 1921 and 1934. It takes in pupils from about 6 or 7 right through to sixth form (16 - 18), and has forms divided into A, B and Remove (in certain years). Like South Hampstead, the school plays netball, hockey, rounders and cricket (Forest herself played for the school in netball, hockey and cricket), and many of the teachers at Kingscote are based to an extent on those who taught Forest.
