The UK Campus
The Estate
The Reconciliation League campus in the United Kingdom is Wroxton Abbey, a 56-acre estate in Oxfordshire. The Jacobean house, built in 1618 on the site of a thirteenth-century priory, was the family seat of Lord North, Prime Minister during the American Revolution. Since 1965 it has been the home of Wroxton College. Students live and study within the house itself, with modern classrooms and teaching facilities throughout, and Stratford-upon-Avon, Oxford, Coventry and London all within easy reach.
The Abbey campus offers a uniquely appropriate setting for the Reconciliation League. The nearby city of Coventry is recognized as a City of Peace and Reconciliation because it is a story of reconciliation: following a horrific bombing in 1940 that killed more than 500 people and destroyed 43,000 homes and buildings, the city’s civic and religious leaders vowed to seek reconciliation with those responsible, a radical commitment to peace over vengeance.
Annually since then, the city has hosted a Peace Festival and a Peace Lecture; and, there is a Centre for Trust, Peace, and Social Relations, which supports research in peace-building and security.
On the BBC
“It is a house that oozes history, with suits of armour in the grand hall, wood-panelled bookcases swinging open to reveal secret libraries, and portraits from the past peering down from every wall.
“Wroxton Abbey is a manor house which 250 years ago was the home of Lord Frederick North, the then British Prime Minister. Lord North was long regarded as a failure due to his association with Britain’s catastrophic defeat in the American War of Independence in the 1770s and 80s.
“Ironically, in 1965, Wroxton became the first ever overseas campus of an American university.”
BBC: How a former PM’s home became an American college.
The Wroxton Session runs July 24 – August 20, 2027. Courses for the Fall 2027 and Spring 2028 at Wroxton, specially organized for the campus under the guidance of the Reconciliation League, are coming soon.
