Wymondham College is a coeducational day and boarding school in Morley, near Wymondham, Norfolk, England with academy status. A former grammar school, it is one of 36 state boarding schools in England and the largest of its type in the country, with up to 650 boarding places. It is also an affiliate member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC). History Former military hospital The school is built on the site of the Second World War USAAF 231st Station Hospital, When the school first opened in 1951 the hospital's forty Nissen huts were used as dormitories. It was established by Lincoln Ralphs, the chief education officer of Norfolk County Council. Brick-built accommodation began to appear in the late 1950s, but Nissen huts remained in use, principally for classrooms and storage, through to end of the 1990s. The only Nissen hut now remaining is the College chapel. A memorial garden has been created on the site of the former USAAF mortuary, which for many years was used as the school's technical drawing classroom. Grammar schools In 1951 there were two separate schools, Grammar and Technical, each with separate Heads. They merged in the mid-1950s after an uneasy co-existence. The school was a co-educational boarding grammar school. It was intended for academically-gifted children with no grammar schools in their local area that they could attend, as well as those with parents abroad or who regularly moved around the country. It gave priority, where possible, to children from families where the parents had separated, thus possibly under financial hardship. Admissions were by examination and headmasters' reports. In the mid-1970s, the school had 700 boarders and 750 day pupils (from the former county grammar school). By 1978 this was 1,000 day pupils as well as the 700 boarders. Margaret Thatcher visited the school in the early 1970s. The school remained exclusively 'boarding' until the early 1970s, when it was merged with the County Grammar School, which had been hosted at Wymondham on a 'temporary' basis for nearly ten years. The school in the 1970s had been in a state of disrepair with an out-dated water supply and drainage system, and had an unreliable heating system (built by the USAF in 1944) in the winter and lack of insulation. Despite these problems it was still producing outstanding academic results. It was offered £250,000 in 1978 by the Labour government to address the situation, on condition