Catalogue description RED HOUSE (FARM) SCHOOL, BUXTON

Administrative Papers

All items on this list are closed for 30 years, with the exception of the following

C/SS8/17-30 = 50 years

31-46, 49-64, 81-85 = 100 years

213-217 no restriction

Records received by Norfolk Record Office on

25 March and 12 August 1981 (C/SS8/1-211)

8 February 1996 (C/SS8/212-217)

Although the records of The Red House (Farm) School are listed amongst the Norfolk County Council Social Services Department records, the County Council was directly involved with the school for less than a decade. On 1 April 1973, under the Children's Act of 1969, The Red House Farm School ceased to be an approved school for boys and became a controlled community home under the control of the County Council, known as The Red House Community Home School. This closed on 31 July 1981 and the staff were offered posts in other County Council establishments or early retirement. Norfolk County Council's involvement ceased on 15 October 1981 and the school's property reverted to the Foundation Managers.

An unsuccessful attempt was made to sell the property (in the parishes of Buxton, Marsham, Brampton and Hevingham) by private treaty in 1982. On 17 June 1983 the property was put up for sale by auction in 17 lots. The agricultural land and staff houses found buyers at the auction. However lot 14 (the main complex) was not sold until mid-1984 when it was purchased by the Faelleseje Private Foundation (better known as the Tvind School Co-operative of Denmark). A copy of the trust deed is at C/SS 8/217/1. This body set up a school for deprived and disturbed children and adolescents known as The Small School at Red House, to which Local Education Authorities from all over the country sent individuals.

The proceeds from the sale were invested by the Red House School Foundation Managers and on 31 March 1992 The Red House School Charitable Trust was established. Its objects are primarily to further the education and training of any child or young person who is or has been in the care of, or provided with accommodation by, or under the supervision of the County Council or any child or young person in need. A copy of the trust deed is at C/SS 8/216.

At a meeting of the County magistrates in 1852 it was agreed that an establishment should be formed for the maintenance and religious and industrial training of forty lads under the age of twenty. Land was obtained and buildings erected at Buxton. In 1894 a Home Office order confirmed Red House as an industrial school and in 1933 it was reclassified as an approved school. The school closed in 1981. See Derick Mellor, A History of the Red House Farm School, Buxton near Norwich, 1976