Wheatley Park School


Wheatley Park School is a co-educational state secondary school of approximately 1,150 pupils situated in Holton, Oxfordshire, England about east of Oxford. The school has been an academy since May 2014. The school is most notable for producing the United Kingdom's former Prime Minister, Theresa May.

The school

A grammar school for east Oxfordshire, Holton Park Girls' Grammar School, was founded on the site in 1949. In 1971 Wheatley Park Comprehensive School was opened at two sites with senior and junior divisions, one of which was situated in Wheatley. These two divisions consolidated in the early 1980s on the present site at Holton Park, although the school retained the name Wheatley Park School. The main complex of modern school buildings is located in the former parkland of a Regency house built about 1807.

History of the site

The site was used as a military hospital during the Second World War for the US and subsequently British military, but the huts housing the hospital were removed from the site in 2006. It was known as Holton Park Hospital or Wheatley Military Hospital. The US 97th General Hospital officially took command of the hospital on 22 April 1944 in preparation to treat casualties from D-Day and after. The first train of casualties arrived 6 days after D-Day. By 2 August 1944, 1,449 battle casualties had been treated at the hospital. The 97th departed Wheatley on 30 June 1945 and to set up a facility in France.

Notable former pupils