History
A training school for female teachers began operating in the Old College building on this site in Ripon in 1862 under the auspices of the Yorkshire Diocesan Society for the Education of the Poor in the Principle of the Established Church.
Over the years the college grew, and further facilities were added. It was eventually combined with its male counterpart in York to form the College of Ripon and York St John in 1974.
The Ripon campus closed in 2001 after 139 years of training teachers. It was bought by Highstone Estates for development, to become known as the College Lawns Estate.
When planning permission was given to convert the Old College into apartments, and to replace a number of other disused buildings with new houses and apartments, Harrogate Borough Council employed a mechanism known as Section 106 of the 1990 Town and Country Planning Act to ensure that the development contributed to amenities for the wider community.
Through a Deed of Covenant they required the developer to include public open spaces, the all weather sports pitches, the children’s playground, the pavilion, and the playing field. The freehold of all these amenities is currently held by Persimmon Homes, who took over the development of College Lawns in the early 2000s, and CLEMCO was established in 2003 to manage them as a ‘resident management company’ under a mechanism which has been used on many new private housing developments in England.
