A former Church of England school in North Ockendon which was threatened by bombing during World War Two has gone up for sale.
Benyon House in Church Lane, now a three-bedroom semi-detached property, was once St Mary’s Church of England School built in 1842.
The school was very nearly destroyed in 1944 when a V2 bomb exploded outside St Mary Magdalene Church, causing all the school’s windows to shatter.
Pupil numbers declined post-war and the school closed in 1980; it was eventually converted into residential properties.
Tom Costin, local sales expert at Purple Bricks, said it still retained traces of its scholarly history.
He said: “As you walk in, the one thing that really stands out is the parquet flooring doesn’t look like your normal residential parquet flooring.
“It's got the feel and colourings of a school hall – the kind you might have gone to when you were very young.”
Tom said one prospective buyer – a school caretaker – had been put off by the £550,000 building’s past, but that most had been interested in its history.
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