WELLS CATHEDRAL SCHOOL LIMITED

Registered charity 310212 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register

The education and care of c.700 boys and girls from ages 3-18, including the choristers of the cathedral church of St Andrews in Wells. The school is also one of the four government supported specialist music schools in the country and advanced musical training is provided for about a third of its pupils.

Causes: Education/training · website · Get email alerts

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that the Group reported a consolidated net deficit of £948k for the year ended 31 August 2025, driven by a £1,064k deficit at the School level which was partially offset by a £115k surplus from the Foundation. Per the trustees' report, free reserves are currently in a deficit of £6,293k, although the Governors hold significant designated reserves of £19,563k to support operations and asset investment.

Automated summary of the FY2025 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by Crowe U.K. LLP. Discloses 4 of 6 completeness components.

Leadership, per the charity’s website

• Alastair Tighe — Head Master (source)
• Robert McCartney — Bursar (source)
• Jody Wells — Head of the Prep School (source)
• Martin Ashton — Deputy Head (Pastoral) (source)
• Natalie Perry — Deputy Head (Academic) (source)
• Alex Laing — Director of Music and Expressive Arts (source)
• Rebecca Perdrix — Head of Pre-Prep (source)

Listed on the charity’s own website when we last crawled it; roles may have changed. Pay-band disclosures above are anonymous statutory disclosures and are not attributed to any named individual.

Property (HM Land Registry)

24 registered titles in England and Wales held by the charity’s company or corporate body (22 freehold); recorded price paid £875k. All charity-held property. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright, OGL v3.0.

Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): instagram

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/08/2025)

Reported reserves equal ~7.9 months of spending — above the median for charities its size (median 4.6 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Charitable activities (95% of income) — components as reported reconcile to the return’s total income; not from the accounts narrative.

Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 3.4% of total income — below the median for charities its size (3.8%) (benchmarks).

Trustees · trustee networks

• Andrew Gummer
• Dorothy Nancekievill · trustee of 1 other charity
• Dr Megan Isobel Jane Daffern · trustee of 2 other charities
• Elizabeth Shelton
• Kris Robbetts
• ROBERT POWELL · trustee of 1 other charity
• Simon Bernal-Palmer
• The Reverend Canon Timothy David Stevens
• The Very Reverend Toby Christopher Wright · trustee of 1 other charity
• Timothy William Hunt Lewis · trustee of 2 other charities

Trustee list from the Charity Commission register (current, not historical).

Operates in: Somerset

Income and spending

Common questions

Shared trustees with funders

Register facts shown side by side: a person serves as trustee of both this charity and a funder whose accounts record grants to it. Shared trusteeship is lawful and common; well-run charities manage it through declared-interest procedures.

• Dorothy Nancekievill — trustee here and at THE WELLS CATHEDRAL CHORISTER TRUST

Known funders

Grants to this charity found in funders’ own accounts filings.

Funders of similar charities

Funders whose accounts show grants to charities similar to this one (and no recorded grant to this charity) — a starting list for fundraisers.

Charities like this

Semantically similar by activities and financial character, from our analysed corpus. Compare with THE WELLS CATHEDRAL SCHOOL FOUNDATION.

• THE WELLS CATHEDRAL SCHOOL FOUNDATION income £240k
• THE WELLS CATHEDRAL CHORISTER TRUST income £512k
• THE PURCELL SCHOOL income £9.2m
• WESTMINSTER CATHEDRAL CHOIR SCHOOL income £7.1m
• WELLINGTON SCHOOL 1837 income £18.3m
• ST JOHN'S COLLEGE LIMITED income £7.1m

Side by side with its peers

Each row is that charity’s latest analysed filing; every value is quote-backed on its own page.