King's School: Cumberland St
The historic King's School was founded in 1502 within the Church of St Michael and All Angels in Macclesfield. The priest-schoolmaster and free school were to be maintained by an original endowment of £10 a year and seventeen feoffees were appointed, all local gentry. The school was affected by the Chantries Act between 1547 and 1552 when it was refounded by royal charter and acquired a further endowment of £10 from lands of the dissolved college of St. John the Baptist in Chester. A corporate body of governors was formed with powers to nominate masters, decide salaries and make regulations. It moved numerously over the years, with it's original placement beside the parish church, the former house of Sir John Davenport from 1748 until it reached the position on Cumberland Street where it closed a few months ago.
In 1552, it was refounded by Edward VI as the 'Free Grammar School of King Edward V1,' moving to it's current location in 1844. A charity commission scheme in 1879 led to integration of the Cumberland Street site and another school, formerly Macclesfield High School, on Fence Avenue, with Cumberland Street teaching boys and Fence Avenue teaching girls and juniors, both known as the King's School. New extensions were added in the 1930s and in 1938, King's School became a public school. This report consists of the boys section of the school's buildings but both lie abandoned.
In 2020, plans were announced to close both establishments to be replaced by a new single site school in Prestbury. The basis of the plans is to fund the construction of the new development by selling the two older schools for housing. After this was granted, in July 2020, King's School left Macclesfield for the first time in 500 years of continuous operation, moving to it's new property in Prestbury. Widely considered as a local landmark, the iconic, independent school and it's additional structures stand at the end of an immaculately kept cricket green in the centre of the town.
The closure was announced on an article sometime in the Summer so I pinned it for later inspection. However, it was @jtza who reminded me about it after spotting it himself recently. In the middle of the month, we stopped by to see what we could make of the huge space. Despite there being a car parked outdoors and signs that construction work was underway, it was relatively quiet for the most part and we were able to make our way around the site, avoiding the various cameras.
There are many buildings onsite and we didn't access every one, although we tried to. Access seemed to be surprisingly easy for some of the structures but then absurdly hard for others. The lack of consistency in this case made it quite interesting and fresh. Visited with @jtza , @huyt.urb and @DustySensorPhotography .
A map of the site courtesy of @jtza . We managed to get into F, B, A and G so there is still some potential interest in the remaining buildings, most likely in C. We had plans to look at more but the patrolling security guard in the evening deterred us and we departed.
Percyvale Science Building (F)
External from Google Street View.
This small property is located away from the rest of the buildings and we had to double check it was part of the King's site after passing it during an early morning recce. Once we had confirmed it, we found a simple enough entry point and were greeted by a broken fire alarm beeping away.
Inside, there was no vandalism but signs of stripping. The multiple labs had been stripped with the nicest feature being the wooden floor. It offered potential for what the rest of the school could hold.
Stripped lab.
Storage room for chemicals.
Entrance doors.
Staircase.
One of the better laboratories. The tops of the desks had been stripped but an old periodic table was hung on the wall.
Building B
This building was quite interesting and possibly my favourite in the whole site. It had the oldest features that had survived such as a wonderful Art Deco staircase and a lot of the classrooms still had bits and bobs left behind.
Lights on in one of the empty classrooms.
Astronomy classroom.
Building A
The central block of the school. It houses the Geography, RE, Languages, Maths and Drama departments. All the rooms were stripped of anything, but there were some decent features of old visible behind modern developments.
We were pretty certain that the car at the entrance of this building insinuated that someone would be sat in reception, Jordanhill-esque but it turned out not to be. We had full reign inside as well as control of all the lights.
Main hall.
An organ that didn’t work.
On the stage.
Reception which led to the principal’s office.
Opposing staircases at either end of the school took students upwards. These had nice design, but it seemed to have been tidied up over the years.
The historic King's School was founded in 1502 within the Church of St Michael and All Angels in Macclesfield. The priest-schoolmaster and free school were to be maintained by an original endowment of £10 a year and seventeen feoffees were appointed, all local gentry. The school was affected by the Chantries Act between 1547 and 1552 when it was refounded by royal charter and acquired a further endowment of £10 from lands of the dissolved college of St. John the Baptist in Chester. A corporate body of governors was formed with powers to nominate masters, decide salaries and make regulations. It moved numerously over the years, with it's original placement beside the parish church, the former house of Sir John Davenport from 1748 until it reached the position on Cumberland Street where it closed a few months ago.
In 1552, it was refounded by Edward VI as the 'Free Grammar School of King Edward V1,' moving to it's current location in 1844. A charity commission scheme in 1879 led to integration of the Cumberland Street site and another school, formerly Macclesfield High School, on Fence Avenue, with Cumberland Street teaching boys and Fence Avenue teaching girls and juniors, both known as the King's School. New extensions were added in the 1930s and in 1938, King's School became a public school. This report consists of the boys section of the school's buildings but both lie abandoned.
In 2020, plans were announced to close both establishments to be replaced by a new single site school in Prestbury. The basis of the plans is to fund the construction of the new development by selling the two older schools for housing. After this was granted, in July 2020, King's School left Macclesfield for the first time in 500 years of continuous operation, moving to it's new property in Prestbury. Widely considered as a local landmark, the iconic, independent school and it's additional structures stand at the end of an immaculately kept cricket green in the centre of the town.
The closure was announced on an article sometime in the Summer so I pinned it for later inspection. However, it was @jtza who reminded me about it after spotting it himself recently. In the middle of the month, we stopped by to see what we could make of the huge space. Despite there being a car parked outdoors and signs that construction work was underway, it was relatively quiet for the most part and we were able to make our way around the site, avoiding the various cameras.
There are many buildings onsite and we didn't access every one, although we tried to. Access seemed to be surprisingly easy for some of the structures but then absurdly hard for others. The lack of consistency in this case made it quite interesting and fresh. Visited with @jtza , @huyt.urb and @DustySensorPhotography .
A map of the site courtesy of @jtza . We managed to get into F, B, A and G so there is still some potential interest in the remaining buildings, most likely in C. We had plans to look at more but the patrolling security guard in the evening deterred us and we departed.
Percyvale Science Building (F)
External from Google Street View.
This small property is located away from the rest of the buildings and we had to double check it was part of the King's site after passing it during an early morning recce. Once we had confirmed it, we found a simple enough entry point and were greeted by a broken fire alarm beeping away.
Inside, there was no vandalism but signs of stripping. The multiple labs had been stripped with the nicest feature being the wooden floor. It offered potential for what the rest of the school could hold.
Stripped lab.
Storage room for chemicals.
Entrance doors.
Staircase.
One of the better laboratories. The tops of the desks had been stripped but an old periodic table was hung on the wall.
Building B
This building was quite interesting and possibly my favourite in the whole site. It had the oldest features that had survived such as a wonderful Art Deco staircase and a lot of the classrooms still had bits and bobs left behind.
Lights on in one of the empty classrooms.
Astronomy classroom.
Building A
The central block of the school. It houses the Geography, RE, Languages, Maths and Drama departments. All the rooms were stripped of anything, but there were some decent features of old visible behind modern developments.
We were pretty certain that the car at the entrance of this building insinuated that someone would be sat in reception, Jordanhill-esque but it turned out not to be. We had full reign inside as well as control of all the lights.
Main hall.
An organ that didn’t work.
On the stage.
Reception which led to the principal’s office.
Opposing staircases at either end of the school took students upwards. These had nice design, but it seemed to have been tidied up over the years.
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