On Monday, 7 October 2025, during Parents’ Week, a small but meaningful gathering took place at 13 Park Road. The College Head, Mr Leon Grové, together with members of the Kingswood Council, marked the naming of the College Head’s residence as Ridgmount.

The home, now occupied by Mr and Mrs Grové and their children, Zoé, Chloe and Christian, has recently undergone careful renovation to serve as both a family home and the formal residence of the Kingswood College Head and their family.

In a simple yet moving ceremony, Mr and Mrs Grové, accompanied by the Chairman of Council, Mr Richard Gaybba (OK 2001), and the President of the Old Kingswoodian Club, Mr Chris Hobson, cut the ribbon which formally bestowed the name. Together, they symbolically linked the College’s present leadership to its rich past.

The naming of Ridgmount was facilitated by the Heritage Committee who made the proposal to the Kingswood College Council, who oversees the naming of buildings on the school’s historic campus.

The original Ridgmount (located at 1 Trollope Street) was the residence of the Kingswood College Head from 1980 to 1993. The gracious double-storey home was designed in the late 1800s by noted British architect William White Cooper, whose work shaped much of Makhanda’s educational and ecclesiastical landscape. His designs, characterised by their solid Edwardian proportions and distinctive Gothic Revival flourishes, are still visible across several of the city’s landmark schools and churches, including Kingswood’s own School House, Jagger House, and College Museum.

The original Ridgmount entered Kingswood’s story through the generosity of Gladys Blackbeard, an Old Girl of the Wesleyan High School, who in 1975 bequeathed both her home and a trust fund to the College. The residence became home to successive College Heads, including Gordon and Elizabeth Todd (1980–1986) and Neil and June Jardine (1986–1993). It was a gracious home filled with family life, croquet on the lawns, and cucumber sandwiches on Friday afternoons, fondly remembered by many Old Kingswoodians who passed through the College in those years.

When, in the early 1990s, the College elected to part with the original property, the name Ridgmount was not at that time carried forward. Its reinstatement now, after more than three decades, is a fitting gesture, returning to the Head’s residence a name long associated with leadership, service and belonging.

In a school with more than 130 years of history, names do more than identify buildings; they carry the spirit of those who have shaped our community. The restoration of the Ridgmount name reminds us that such customs give rhythm and meaning to school life; they help us remember that we are part of something larger than ourselves. This theme has echoed much throughout Parents’ Week 2025.

As Ridgmount takes its place once more within the Kingswood story, it stands as a quiet but enduring symbol of those values that unite us across generations.