Aspiration Facades was selected as the specalists façade contractor for the new £1.5m Scarburgh Science Centre at Paston College.

The new building provides the College with modern up to date laboratory facilities including research and study space. The expansion will allow the College to meet the needs of the growing numbers applying to study Biology, Chemistry and Physics. The building designed by SMG Architects and constructed by Draper Nichols Ltd blends new modern design, including a stunning atrium entrance with the traditional appearance of the historic buildings on the Lawns site.

Working with the professional team we provided an insulated render solutions by Saint Gobain Weber. The system significantly improved the thermal performance of the new modern block to help reduce running costs for the school. This investment in the cladding will allow them to re-invest the savings back into the future of the college.

Paston began life 400 years ago as Sir William Paston’s Free School, essentially a grammar school for boys, which sent pupils to Gonville College, Cambridge from an early date. Most of its pupils boarded at the school. The coming of railways saw the size of the school grow rapidly given North Walsham’s links to the network and so began the tradition of daily travel to attend the school, and incidentally the development of North Walsham as a centre for education serving the area. The North Walsham High School for Girls, the grammar school for girls in North Norfolk, was created around the turn of the Twentieth Century to complement the work of Paston.

In 1984 the Paston School merged with the North Walsham High School for Girls to become the present sixth form college, dedicated to working with young people aged 16-18. There have been many students who have gone on from the schools and indeed the College to figure prominently on the local and national stage, in so many different fields. These are too numerous to list but two stand out from the distant past:-

Thomas Tenison (1637-1715), Archbishop of Canterbury (1695-1715) during the reigns of William and Mary, Queen Anne and George I.

Horatio Nelson (1758-1805) who was at the school from 1768-1771 immediately prior to joining the Royal Navy.