A team of 65 riders - made up of Old Marlburians, parents and staff - will cycle over 250 miles from Marlborough College to the Somme, raising money for the Marlborough College Bursary Programme.

The team which will set off on Friday 13th October before a 70-mile cycle to Portsmouth. An overnight Ferry will mark the start of day two - which will end at Forge-les-Eaux. On Sunday the group will head east towards Thiepval - crossing the Somme before entering the battlefields area. At Thiepval Memorial there will be a commitment of the Wreath. On arrival in Arras there will be a Commemorative Dinner, to remember and celebrate the 749 Marlburians who died in WWI.

About The Marlborough College Bursary Appeal

When Marlborough founded by the clergy in 1843 it was to educate a significantly wider group of pupils for the good of everyone and to be a place with a social purpose. This founding principal remains as powerful a belief today as it did then and since 2015 we have been working to expand our bursary provision to realign ourselves with the position of our founders.

We set our ourselves a target of 20 full bursaries by 2025 and are on track to meet this. We currently have 76 pupils receiving a Bursary of over 50% (107 on some form of bursary), and eight of whom are on full Bursaries. We are delighted to say there will be ten Full Bursaries from 2018. The College, recognising that it cannot solely rely on gifts from our community, has increased its financial commitment from 6% to 9% of fee remission (£2.2m).