St. Michael's College (the College of St. Michael and All Angels) was founded by Sir Frederick Ouseley in 1856 as a boys Preparatory School. Ouseley created the school to provide a model for the performance of Anglican church music. Choral services were performed daily in term time. The college possessed a library that contained rare books of international importance. Financial difficulties forced its closure in 1985. The buildings were reopened as an independent international boarding school under the name of King's College Saint Michaels in 1990. It closed in June 2020 as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. History The school was founded in reaction to the decline of Anglican church music in the Victorian period. Ouseley sited it in a remote location so as to insulate it from the influence of London. Designed by renowned English Church architect Henry Woodyer, until its closure the school regularly sang 150 settings of evensong; it was the last educational establishment in England to sing the orders throughout the week. In the school chapel the choir is separated from the chancel by an ornate gilded screen topped by candles. The choir is backed by a 'Father' Willis organ, painted with a representation of St Michael defeating the dragon. Recordings of the choir are listed in the British Library Sound Archive and are available on CD in back catalogue editions. A recording of the final Evensong sung at the school in 1985 is found on the Archive of Recorded Church Music site The school chapel is now the parish church for the surrounding village of St. Michael's which was created to support the creation of the school. Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman spoke of the college, referring to: "……..the unique atmosphere of St. Michael’s College, Tenbury. I shall never forget my first impression of the place. There was the climb up from the little market town of Tenbury whence some of the lay clerks make their twice daily journey to Mattins and Evensong to lend men’s voices to the boys’ choir, and there before me stretched an enormous common. In the far corner, in a land of blossoming orchards and backed by the blue distance of Clee Hill, rose a chapel, seemingly as large as Lancing. Attached to it were Warden’s house, school buildings, cloister and dining hall, all in a style of the fourteenth century, re-interpreted in local materials for the nineteenth century