Pupils Join Fundraising Push For Landmark Run
21st March 2025
With little more than two weeks until the London Landmarks Half-Marathon, pupils at Highfield and Brookham School have joined the fundraising push.
Highfield and Brookham owner Bill Mills, Head Suzannah Cryer, Head of Pre-Prep Georgie Hunter and parents Sarah Bagshaw and Claire Kenwright will be pounding the streets of the nation’s capital on April 6 in aid of the Highfield School Centenaries Bursaries Fund.
As well as training hard for the half-marathon, the focused five have also been busy raising money for their chosen charity – and their cause has been helped this week by two caring children who, armed with collection buckets and disarming smiles, set up shop outside the pre-prep main entrance in time for morning drop off.
The quintet of runners is close to halfway toward its combined fundraising target of £6,000, and the charity coffers have been swelled further by the £192 raised by the children outside the school gates.
The 13-mile charity run – the only half-marathon to incorporate the City of London and the City of Westminster – will take the fleet-footed five past some of the city’s most famous monuments, such as Big Ben, Tower Bridge, The Shard and the London Eye.
But it will also take in many of London’s hidden heritage and cultural gems like Guy Fawkes’ house where the Gunpowder Plot conspirators met, the memorial to flamboyant poet Oscar Wilde, Pudding Lane, where the Great Fire of London started in 1666, and Billingsgate Roman bathhouse.
Mrs Hunter is no stranger to endurance running, having been one of four staff members who raised almost £4,000 for the school’s Highreach Holidays charity when completing the gruelling 62-mile South Coast Challenge from Eastbourne to Arundel in 2021.
And she joined Mrs Cryer for the Year 5 race during February’s inter-school cross-country championships hosted by Highfield and Brookham in Liphook.
Speaking on behalf of the five runners, Mrs Cryer said: “We’re all getting a little nervous now that the race is getting so close, but we’re driven by the fact that it is for such a wonderful cause.
“Bursaries really do make an incredible difference to the lives of young people, and we’re immensely proud that our current children are doing their bit to help hoist the fundraising flag.”
Highfield Centenary Bursaries Fund was set up 17 years ago with the aim of supporting children who would not otherwise have the opportunity to attend an independent school such as Highfield and Brookham. Typical candidates are children who are experiencing social or educational difficulties or children who have the ability to succeed academically if given the right support.
The five runners have set up fundraising pages. To donate, visit:
https://www.justgiving.com/page/suzannah-cryer-1736938475380
https://www.justgiving.com/page/georgie-hunter-1
www.justgiving.com/page/octavia-bagshaw-1