Calls to save Princess Diana's old school building in Gaywood

Demolishing Princess Diana's childhood school would destroy a town's heritage, a conservation group has warned.

The Norfolk-born royal began her formal education at Silfield Day School in Gaywood, King's Lynn.

The building that once housed it could be bulldozed as part of plans for a new care home.

Developers Aspire LLP said it would help to ease a shortage of care home beds in the area, but there are calls for it to be listed.

King's Lynn Civic Society is attempting to persuade Historic England to change the building's status to protect it.

The group's chairman Alison Gifford said: "We are convinced of its importance as an example of an architectural style not represented elsewhere in the town in such an elegant form.

"When these lovely suburban villas are demolished for multiple units of inferior housing, part of our history is lost.

"The pleasant and well-designed becomes mundane. You see it everywhere. It's symbolic of modern life.

"We are all poorer for this downgrading of our buildings."

Diana, Princess of Wales, who was born on the Sandringham Estate, attended the privately run Silfield School in 1968 and stayed there for two years.

She later left the school in 1970 to study at Riddlesworth Hall Preparatory School in southwest Norfolk, which went on sale last year for £3m.

Silfield School remained in operation until 2004.

Aspire LLP has applied to West Norfolk Council to seek prior approval to demolish Silfield House.

It follows a bid to build six houses on the plot, which was approved in 2018.

But the company, a specialist care home developer, has different plans for the site and hopes to build a 70-bed care home.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, a spokesman said: "There is currently a shortfall of care home bed spaces for the elderly across the borough.

"The site is in a highly sustainable location in close proximity to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and provides an opportunity to meet a demonstrable need and deliver a much-needed community asset."

But Ms Gifford believes the decision to demolish the building should be viewed amid a wider neglect of historic buildings in King's Lynn, such as the Carnegie Library - built in 1905 - which is to be abandoned for a new modern library in the city, and the Old Post Office, which has been left to decay.

Silfield House was built in 1921 by members of the Jermyn family, who once ran the main high street department store in King's Lynn.

It was designed by architects John Laurie Carnell and William Dymoke White, who also designed the Majestic Cinema in the centre of the town.

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