WINDLESTONE HALL

I would have happily paid more than £500,000 for the property.

The land alone I would value at £150,000 at least.

I also have at least six friends local to the area who have the funds and if offered the property for under a million would have jumped at the chance to own a piece of our heritage.

Our country is run by a bunch of half-wits who not only think they are above the law but also greater beings than you or I.

This is yet another case of gross negligence by people we place our trust in.

I admire the new owners and am pleased that they intend making it their home.

Having owned a listed building myself in the past I, for one, wish them all the best. There is a lot to do but, if done correctly and to the standard required, the results will be well worth it.

Our history is obviously of no value to the infidels who gave away our heritage.

J Cumberland, Windlestone.

THE article printed in The Northern Echo regarding the sale of Windlestone Hall included a small error which has upset some former pupils (Echo, Oct 3).

The claim that the hall was used as a school for children with behavioural and emotional problems for 50 years is incorrect.

From 1957 until the late 1970s it was, in fact, a residential school for asthmatic/delicate children.

I attended Windlestone as a boarder from 1969 until 1976 because, due to my asthma, I was losing too much schooling in my home town of Jarrow.

From the age of nine, Windlestone was my home. It was the same for the other 120 pupils.

When I did have an asthma attack my condition could be treated quickly by doctors and nurses on site, ensuring a speedy return to the classroom.

By the late 1970s the medication to treat asthma was at an advanced stage and residential schools were no longer needed.

Windlestone was therefore closed for a few years then re-opened as a school for maladjusted children in the early 1980s. After Windlestone was closed the school moved to a purpose-built building near Ferryhill.

My privileged years at Windlestone were very happy ones.

We were loved and cared for by teachers and house parents who not only helped improve our health but turned that nine-year-old boy into the man I am today.

We were indeed privileged to call such a magnificent building our home for so many years.

I have revisited Windlestone many times during the intervening years, taking my wife and daughter along to walk the beautiful grounds. Over the past few years I have been saddened by the state it has fallen into, so I was very pleased to hear that a private buyer had put up the money to purchase it. The new owner may well have bagged a bargain but I believe Durham County Council is only too pleased to off load what was becoming a very expensive building to maintain.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the new owners for saving Windlestone and wish them all the very best with the restoration project.

Malcolm Miles, South Shields.