The Downs Malvern is a private prep school in the United Kingdom, founded in 1900. It is located on a site in Colwall in the County of Herefordshire, on the western slopes of the Malvern Hills. The school takes children aged 2 to 13 and comprises a nursery, kindergarten, pre-prep, and preparatory school; the preparatory school takes both day students and boarders. The Headmaster since 2009 has been Alastair Cook, who is a member of the Boarding Schools Association and the IAPS. Fees are currently up to £21,471 pa for full boarders and up to £16,221 pa for day pupils. Since 2008 the Downs has been the preparatory school for Malvern College. A distinctive feature of the school is its miniature-gauge railway, the Downs Light Railway, which was begun in 1925. Complete with a tunnel and a station, it is the world's oldest private miniature railway. History The Downs School at Colwall was founded in 1900 by Herbert Jones, who had been educated in Cambridge and was headmaster at Leighton Park School when he and his wife Ethel Jones founded the Downs Malvern as a preparatory school for boys. It opened with four pupils, and slowly expanded, with 40 pupils in 1918. The Jones were Quakers, and the Downs was unusual in being a Quaker school, a status which would eventually fade away. The Quaker ambience meant that several of the staff were conscientious objectors in the First World War. It was also unusual in pioneering extra-curricular activities, such as music and hobbies, for its pupils. This innovation would eventually spread across the mainstream preparatory schools. In 1920 the Joneses left, and were succeeded by the second master, Geoffrey Hoyland, one of the conscientious objectors. He had married into the Cadbury family and used the family's wealth to expand and improve the school during his tenure as headmaster. Hoyland built new buildings, introduced student self-government and an innovative curriculum with an emphasis on science and the arts. Under his supervision, the pupils built and maintained a miniature railway, the only one in any English school at the time, which still survives. Among the notable masters he hired were the painter Maurice Feild and the poet W. H. Auden. Frazer Hoyland succeeded his brother Geoffrey as headmaster in 1940. He increased the school's emphasis on music and drama. Shortly after the war the poet James Kirkup taught at the school for