The Centre

Twin English Centre Eastbourne is set in an 18th century mansion, once home to Dukes and Duchesses and even a Prime Minister. It is located within walking distance (15 mins) to the town's centre, railway station, bus stops, the main shopping centre, restaurants and cinemas. 

At our English Centre in Eastbourne we are offering students a unique opportunity, to study the English language in a traditionally British school on its own private, historic estate.  As well as its bright, comfortable classrooms the school also provides students with a library and study centre, computer room, large dining hall, piano and indoor table tennis.

Students can also buy hot and cold drinks as well as snacks from the vending machines, and enjoy the 10-hectare garden with football pitches and tennis/basketball/badminton courts. Then share their experience with their friends using the free Wi-Fi available. 

Eastbourne is full of fun things to see and do outside the classroom. Whether you want to spend time in the school or exploring the town and wider area, there is always something to do, such as:

• Enjoying a barbeque on the beach
• Walking along the sea front and paddling in the sea
• Spending an evening at the cinema or theatre
• Playing tennis, golf (right next to our centre), or learning to windsurf
• Spending time with friend and enjoying activities on the social programme
• Visiting the harbour or walking over to the scenic Beachy Head

Travel information and transport links

If you do not want to book our airport transfer taxi service you can make your way to us by train: 

Heathrow: You can take the Piccadilly Underground Line to South Kensington, and then change to take the District or Circle Underground Line to Victoria Station (about 60 minutes). Take a mainline train from Victoria Station to Eastbourne (about 90 minutes). 
Cost: £61

Gatwick: You can take a mainline train directly to Eastbourne from Gatwick train station (about 55 minutes). 
Cost £17

Luton: From Luton Airport take a mainline train to Luton Airport Parkway. At Luton Airport Parkway, you should take a train to East Croydon. Change at East Croydon to Eastbourne (about 2hrs 40 mins).
Cost: £60

Stansted: From Stansted airport you can take a mainline train to London Liverpool Street (about 45 minutes). Then take a Central Underground Train to Oxford Street, change here to the Victoria Line and take an Underground Train to London Victoria (about 25 minutes). At Victoria Station you can take a mainline train to Eastbourne (about 90 minutes). 
Cost: £62.

To help you plan your journey by train, and check exact prices visit

 www.nationalrail.co.uk for mainline trains , or 
 www.tfl.gov.uk for London Underground trains

You can also choose to travel by coach. To check journey options, prices and times, visit  www.nationalexpress.co.uk 

When arriving at Eastbourne train or coach station, you can take a local taxi or bus to your accommodation. 

Please note students under 16 must book an airport transfer on arrival and departure. We also strongly recommend that students aged 16 and 17 coming to the UK book the service too.

Support and Welfare

Our Student Services team is dedicated to ensuring that you have an enjoyable stay in the UK. We understand how important safe and comfortable accommodation is for you and we select our homestay hosts carefully to be sure you have a great place you can call home.

Please note that if you are aged 16/17 and enrol on one of our courses, you will join a class of adult students. A high level of support is provided for students under 18, including a separate induction and weekly welfare tutorials. Parents/guardians will be informed of lateness or unauthorized absence from class. Students aged 16/17 are not normally supervised outside of class time and will be responsible for their own safety, although Twin will provide guidelines. You can read our full Safeguarding Children and Vulnerable Adults Policy here

Our student services team will:

• Give you accommodation advice
• Deliver an induction programme
• Give you a student identity card
• Help you to get a mobile phone and internet access
• Provide you with ongoing support and monitoring throughout the programme
• Offer you counselling or advice on issues such as healthcare and travel
• Tell you about the social programme
• Offer you 24-hour emergency support

Centre history

Our school building is over 450 years old. 

And like every old building, it has stories to tell — tales of wealth and royalty, loyalty and shame. The oldest parts of the house date back to 1544 when it was known as Bourne Place. One hundred years later, the house passed to the Wilson family, who used it as a farmhouse.

Who were the Wilson Family? 

We know two things about the Wilsons:

1. Between 1642 and 1648, there was a civil war between King Charles I and Parliament. The Wilsons were one of the very few families in this part of England who supported the King. The local Parliamentary leaders sent soldiers to search the house for any evidence that could be used against them. "Please don't wake my husband up," Mrs Wilson told the soldiers. "He's very sick and needs to sleep." She offered to cook the soldiers a meal, while upstairs, her husband was frantically burning all his letters. After he had finished, he came downstairs, and the soldiers searched the house - they found nothing. Many years later, King Charles II invited the Wilsons to London, where Mrs Wilson cooked for him. 

2. A young man, called Thomas Wilson was very fond of gambling. But, he lost so much money that he couldn't pay his debts. His creditors kidnapped him, took him to Jamaica and sold him into slavery. As the story goes, Thomas' master died while he was in Jamaica, and his mistress offered to set him free if he married her, but Thomas refused. 

Spencer Compton

In 1724, the Wilsons sold the house for £4,000 to Spencer Compton, a leading politician. Compton asked one of the best architects in the country, Colen Campbell, to remodel the home in the fashionable Palladian style. Campbell never visited the house, and his assistant, John Lane, was not familiar with Palladian. So he decided to add some Baroque elements to the design of the house. Early in the Nineteenth Century, the outside of the house and the windows were remodelled in the Regency style, and so the house has a unique blend of three different styles.

Spencer Compton became Prime Minister in 1742. He expected King George II to visit, and he built a beautiful bedroom with a picture of Venus and Adonis on the ceiling for him. Unfortunately, Spencer Compton died soon afterwards – quite possibly from the stress of being Prime Minister – and the King never came to stay in the bedroom.

Royal Visits

Just because King George II never came to stay, doesn't mean that that is the end of royalty at Compton place. Many members of the Royal Family have stayed in the building too. King George III was a frequent visitor in the summer of 1780. King George V lived here for six weeks in 1935. The late Queen of England, HM Queen Elizabeth II visited the house as a child in 1936 and spent two weeks here with her sister Princess Margaret in 1946.

Alexandra Romanova

In 1892, 18-year-old German princess, Alexandra of Hesse, came to stay. She had a habit of scratching her name on windows using her diamond ring. You can still see her name on the window today.

Two years later, Alexandra went to Russia, where she married Tsar Nicholas II. Alexandra scratched her name on several windows in St Petersburg and Moscow too, but her life ended badly. In 1917, a revolution broke out, and the Imperial family was imprisoned until December 1918. The Bolsheviks executed Nicholas, Alexandra and their children.

The Dukes of Devonshire

In 1782, Lady Elizabeth Compton married into one of the wealthiest families in England: the Cavendish family – the Dukes of Devonshire. The Cavendish's mostly used the house as a summer home or as a home for their children.

In the 1830s and 1840s, the seventh Duke of Devonshire developed Eastbourne as a holiday resort "built by gentlemen for gentlemen", one of the best-planned resort towns on the south coast. It is thanks to the Duke and his insistence that there should be no shops by the beach that Eastbourne has such a lovely seafront.

In 1950, the tenth Duke of Devonshire died of a heart attack. When his son became the eleventh Duke, he decided to move out of the house, and it was no longer used as a home. 

In 1954, the Duke rented the house to a school called Language Tuition Centre, who were based in Oxford Street in London. They opened the LTC Ladies' College of English, a residential language school/finishing school for ladies in Compton Park (the new name for Compton Place). This school was very successful for many years. But, over time, fewer and fewer young girls dreamed of becoming a "lady" rather than a doctor, a lawyer or an architect, and the demand for LTC's courses declined. In 1983, LTC admitted its first male students and became a more conventional language school.

English centre operations

For over 60 years the building has been used as a school, and it will continue to be one for many more years. Today we can host up to 300 international students of all ages and can provide 130 bed-residence for our young learners. We give the students a classroom fit for a king and offer a proper British experience. This building is special to the town and unique for English language students.