Park Close

Park Close is the residential home for Lower School boarders. Park Close is an idyllic home situated a short walk off the main campus and set in its own gardens and grounds. The girls’ bedrooms occupy the top floor and the boys’ the middle. There is an excellent and well equipped indoor social space, with the outside space including a cricket pitch, tennis courts and astro cricket nets.

Weekly and day boarding options are available for 11+. Evenings are busy for Lower School boarders, with a well-run programme of events and activities, including theatre trips, film nights, sports and swimming, bowling nights and other seasonal excursions.

Park Close Housemistress

Sophie takes responsibility for all boarding and pastoral care of the Exham House boarders as well as continuing her support to the PE Department in hockey, rounders, tennis and netball.

Sophie Heathcote joined Bloxham in 2004 as a sports coach, and since then has taken successful sports tours to Northern Europe, Paris and South Africa. In 2013, Sophie became Lower School’s Sports Coordinator before extending her reach in Exham to become a tutor and then Assistant Housemistress of Park Close in 2015.

Prior to Bloxham, Sophie spent many years as an A&E nurse before taking a break to raise a family. She has three children, Alice, Harry and Louisa, who are all Old Bloxhamists. She especially enjoys supporting the broader curriculum at Bloxham, leading outward-bound activities such as the annual French Alps Trip and First and Second Form camps, as well as supporting DofE. Sophie lives at Park Close with her husband, Guy Heathcote, with her children visiting often!