Dover College is a co-educational independent school in Dover in southeast England. It was founded in 1871, and takes both day pupils and boarders. The school occupies some of the medieval buildings of Dover Priory, on a site just east of the eponymous railway station. In 1869 Robert Chignell, who had a private school at Westmount, in Folkestone Road, leased part of the Dover Priory buildings for a private school. He passed on his interest, however, to a group of leading citizens and local businessmen in Dover, led by the Mayor of Dover, Dr. Astley, who had formed the Dover College Company to promote the foundation of a public school for the town on what remained of the Priory site with the dual intention of providing a public school education for local boys and of using and thus preserving the Priory's remaining ancient buildings. It is set in the grounds and ruins of the Priory of St.Martin, which was ransacked by King Henry VIII as part of his dissolution of the monasteries. The priory gives its name to Dover's main railway station which was built on the western part of the priory site. Some of the original medieval buildings remain.