The Old Grammar is a mid-19th century Grade II listed building in the centre of the historic market town of Richmond, North Yorkshire. Formerly Richmond Lower School, The Old Grammar holds fond memories for many people in our community. The site is owned by North Yorkshire Council and has been unused since 2013. The building has fallen into disrepair, and Richmondshire Building Preservation Trust (the local heritage restoration charity behind The Station) are working hard to secure its future.

Richmondshire Building Preservation Trust intend to restore The Old Grammar, bringing it back to life as a Centre for Creativity and Digital Enterprise. Our plan is to turn it into an asset for the community where everyone is welcome, and a home for inspiring events, activities and experiences. More details on future uses will be announced soon via this website, and to be the first to find out project updates you can sign up to our mailing list here.

Richmondshire Building Preservation Trust completed a comprehensive community engagement process in 2024, supported by experts from the National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise (NICRE). This process helped to identify suitable, financially viable uses for the building, by establishing the usability of the site and pinpointing the needs of the community. You can find out more about the consultation process here.

Over 1,200 young people contributed to the consultation and almost 900 members of the community; in addition to the hundreds of people who chatted to the ‘Operation Regeneration’ team when out and about over the summer period of 2024; including businesses and community organisations in targeted workshops. This level of engagement gave a fantastic breadth to the consultation, with a vast spectrum of views and ideas for future regeneration of the site.

The project team appraised all proposed uses, to tailor a cohesive site offer that is both sustainable and will serve the community for generations to come. This team developed a detailed business plan for consideration by the building owners, North Yorkshire Council. This business plan was approved on 6th May 2025 by the North Yorkshire Council executive.

We will be sharing further information about how the site will be used as the project progresses, and you can sign up to our mailing list to be kept up to date.

Richmondshire Building Preservation Trust will be undertaking a major fundraising campaign, and we are confident that we will be able to secure funding from a selection of key organisations, splitting the funding need across numerous grant aiders, rather than just one or two. There will also be opportunities for community fundraising, details of which will be shared as the project progresses.

The project is not reliant on funding from North Yorkshire Council nor have North Yorkshire Council pledged any financial support.

Should you like to express an interest in donating to the project, you can sign up to our mailing list and be informed once community fundraising opens.

During the consultation period, we didn’t just speak with the public – we identified and met personally with key stakeholders from across the region. This included both North Yorkshire Council regeneration teams and senior representatives from the Ministry of Defence, to ensure we understood the extent of the uses and target audience of the Catterick Garrison town centre development.

This was done prior to RBPT’s options appraisal and although the sites will both encourage creativity, they vary greatly in actual uses and target audiences. One of the many criteria within the options appraisal was that uses for The Old Grammar must not conflict with the already established town centre development plans and that both sites should work in harmony to increase the footfall to the area.

In a nutshell, our project costs are forecasted to be in the region of £9 - £10 million.

To make the building usable again – that’s just over £4 million.

To make the site a jewel in Richmond’s crown – that’s a further £2.3 million (further announcements on this coming soon).

To open the doors with immersive experiences accessible to everyone – that’s another £500,000.

Professional fees, surveys, contingencies, planning, inflation – that’s the rest. We don’t plan on overspending, so we build healthy contingencies in now to protect us and our grant aiders down the line.

Dilapidated, listed buildings cost money – we know that first-hand – but we don’t want to just preserve what’s already there, we want to regenerate and bring the whole site back to life, securing the future of the site’s heritage by blending old with new. No half measures, no shortcuts, just inspiring designs that will make the site a regional example of exceptional heritage regeneration.

The previous project to secure the future of The Old Grammar was sadly unsuccessful in securing funding from one core source: the Heritage Lottery Fund.

This project is being led by a new team, and has been developed with support from industry experts, in collaboration with stakeholders and extensive input from the community. This is in addition to the excellent footing provided from the work of colleagues some 6 years ago.

The core difference this time is the fundraising strategy for the project. Instead of seeking funding from one sole source, the risk of failure has been significantly reduced by spreading the fundraising requirement across (up to) 15 grant aiders. This means should one grant fail; the shortfall will be much smaller and therefore much more likely to be filled by other funding sources.

Projects of this nature and scale take time, and at this early stage we are not able to provide details about when we anticipate the building will open, however can confirm we are counting in years rather than months. We will provide further updates and information as the project progresses.

The Old Grammar is an iconic building in Richmond and holds fond memories for many people in our community. We know that people are eager to see the building restored to its former glory, and back in use as a community asset as soon as possible – as your local building preservation charity, we are too. We’ll provide timescales publicly as soon as we are able but you can be assured RBPT are already working hard behind the scenes with fundraising.

The Grade II listed property has been unoccupied for over 12 years and is in need of TLC but structurally remains in moderately good health. As part of Richmondshire Building Preservation Trust’s work, we have undertaken extensive building surveys and will be working with North Yorkshire Council (the building owners) to shield the site from any further decay while the project progresses. We will be sharing updates about the building and the work we are doing in due course.

As the project progresses there will be opportunities for you to get involved, whether that’s volunteering, donating, or simply helping to spread the word!

You can sign up to our mailing list, and let us know what you’d be interested in hearing more about.

The project is being managed by the team at Richmondshire Building Preservation Trust (RBPT), a local heritage restoration charity whose flagship project is the former Victorian railway station – now regenerated into an award-winning café, 3 screen cinema and numerous independent businesses.

As the building has been unoccupied for some time, work will need to be completed before we are in a position to safely welcome visitors to the site.

We will be sharing updates about the building, including images and videos, and you can sign up to our mailing list to get the latest updates here.

Richmondshire Building Preservation Trust (RBPT) returned donations where possible, unless the donors wished for the money to be retained by the charity. If donations could not be tracked back to the donors (e.g. because they were in cash and not identifiable) they were also retained.

All retained donations raised during the last project have been held as restricted funds, in RBPT’s New Project Fund. This ringfenced these donations solely for the development of new projects and meant they could not be used to finance RBPT’s flagship heritage asset, The Station or any other activities of the charity.

We will be drawing from the New Projects Fund and therefore utilising these donations for their intended purpose for this project.

The main artefacts from The Old Grammar were transferred to Richmond School and Sixth Form College. This included some items of Mouseman furniture.

The main artefacts from The Old Grammar were transferred to Richmond School and Sixth Form College. The tabletop is now on display there.

While these documents are under scrutiny by key grant aiders and the building owners, North Yorkshire Council, we will not be releasing the core project documents publicly.

We will however aim to gradually release key information over time, as soon as we are able, and you can sign up to our mailing list to be kept up to date.

While Richmondshire Building Preservation Trust acquires key funding from regional and national grant aiders, the project will not be accepting community donations. Once some key funding has been achieved, we will open up the project to community support: both with volunteering opportunities and for any kind donations to support the site’s regeneration.

To be kept up to date with these announcements you can sign up to our mailing list and let us know how you’d be interested in supporting us.