Marlborough College

Built in the early years of the 18th century for the Duke of Somerset, this magnificent porticoed mansion became in 1751 the Castle Inn which in its heyday was one of the finest coaching inns on the Bath road. Forty coaches a day are said to have changed their horses here. But the prosperity of the coaching era died swiftly with the coming of the railway to Swindon. In 1843 it was reopened as Marlborough College with 200 pupils and 6 masters.