St Peter's School

Heritage boarding school that has shaped Panchgani's identity since 1902

St Peter's School, founded in 1902, is the oldest and best-known of Panchgani's surviving boarding schools and a recognisable presence in the centre of town. Its sloping red-tiled roofs, stone walls and long verandas are pure Anglo-Indian institutional architecture, and the campus is still a working school catering to children from across India.

You cannot tour the school itself, but the leafy lanes around it — past the chapel, the original dormitory wings, the playing fields and the staff bungalows — are the best surviving stretch of colonial-era Panchgani. Combine a walk past St Peter's with a stop at the small Anglican Holy Cross Church and the lanes leading toward Sydney Point.

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A story
When the British wanted boarding schools in a healthy climate they came to Panchgani, and at one point the small town housed more than thirty of them. Several still operate — St Peter's, Kimmins, Sanjeevan, the New Era — and their old buildings, all stone walls, gabled roofs and wide verandas, give the town centre much of its character.

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