Next time you're going to Hobart, keep an eye out on your right as you drive past Ross for a curious ruined arch, standing alone in the Somercotes cherry orchard.
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This red brick portico is all that remains of the once-famous and prestigious Horton College.
The school was built by Samuel Horton, who lived at Somercotes homestead opposite. You can still see his family home from the road.
He was a sea captain who arrived in 1823 and was given a large land grant around Ross, which he named after his birthplace in Lincolnshire. He built the homestead in 1833.
Horton was a devout Wesleyan (Methodist) and held regular church services and administrative meetings at his home.
He saw a need for a quality Wesleyan-owned, ,but interdenominational, school for young gentlemen in the district, along similar lines to the Anglican Church's Bishopsbourne College near Longford.
In 1850 he donated 20 acres and £1000 to initiate the school project, to include a chapel for the use of local Wesleyans.
The foundation stone was laid in January 1852, with about 250 people and every Wesleyan minister in Tasmania attending.
Convicts made bricks onsite and quarried sandstone from Ross, however work progressed slowly due to the gold rush and labour shortages.
The school opened with the enrolment of the first student in October 1855, under Principal John Manton.
Despite the competitor college at Bishopsbourne closing soon after, enrolments at Horton's seldom went much over 50 boarding boys.
Captain Horton had hoped thousands of young people would be educated there. But it wasn't to be, and only some 770 students ever attended.
The total cost was £4500. In 1862 enrolments briefly improved to 66 boys and the following year major extensions were undertaken at an additional cost of £2000.
Mr William Fox, newly arrived from England, took over as principal.
He ensured the attainment of English standards and traditions, but with a freer, Tasmanian approach.
There were further renovations in 1872 including the tower, and in 1887 an astronomical observatory with eight-inch reflector was built behind the school.
Captain Horton died in 1867 after building a vault overlooking the school to take his remains.
He had no children and left Somercotes and the college estate to his nephew Tom Riggall, to be inherited after Mrs Horton died.
School attendance varied with the economy. After Mr Fox retired in 1889 Tasmania fell into a depression and the college rapidly declined.
Despite its scholastic achievements it became effectively bankrupt and closed in 1894 after handing the building back to the surrounding estate.
Tom Riggall died 1917 and his son Herbert demolished the college at the end of 1920.
The chapel bells went to Hutchins School, and some building materials may have gone to Elphin to help build a new wing at the Methodist Ladies College.