Boarding Houses

Barnard Castle School offers comfortable, homely boarding accommodation designed to support community living while allowing students appropriate personal space.

All boarders enjoy their own bed within well‑maintained, recently refurbished houses, alongside access to shared social, study and recreational areas. Accommodation is arranged carefully to suit the age and profile of our boarding students.

There are four boarding houses: Old Courts, Longfield, Northumberland and York.

Across all houses, accommodation is clean, well‑supervised and welcoming, providing a stable and comfortable environment where boarding students can rest, relax and feel at home.

There are four boarding houses that make up this community:

Old Courts

Situated between Chapel and Longfield House, Old Courts is a terrace of three houses originally built for Housemasters in the 1990s that was later converted into junior boarding for girls and boys. It is situated on the site of the old tennis courts – hence the name!

Now, it offers a homely central kitchen, dining and seating area that is at the heart of the house. With additional rooms for quiet reading, a library and a lounge with a piano, there is somewhere for everyone.

Old Courts backs onto the School playing fields, so there is masses of space for children to run and play.

While the communal areas are for all, the boarding rooms are separated by gender, and this boarding house is for girls and boys aged 11-18.

Old Courts is centrally located, purpose‑adapted accommodation for boarding students.

Refurbished to a high standard, it provides modern shared living areas, a library/resource space and a kitchen‑dining area that encourages sociability, alongside bedrooms arranged in small shared rooms.

Longfield

The foundations for Longfield House were dug in 1985, three years after girls were first welcomed into Barnard Castle School, and the building was completed in 1987.

Longfield is home to 55 girl Boarders aged 11 to 18 with recently refurbished rooms and shower rooms. The accommodation has a lovely, large kitchen and dining area with a computer room and clothes washing facilities. A separate comfortable living room offers plenty of space to chill out, socialise with friends and watch films or television.

The majority of rooms are one- or two-bed with en suite wash basins. There are two three-bed rooms for the younger Boarders.

Longfield has its own outdoor space to the front and the rear of the house, including benches and a fire pit for toasting marshmallows on a weekend.

Longfield House, home to girls, offers predominantly one‑ or two‑bed rooms, generous communal spaces and access to outdoor seating areas.

York & Northumberland

The senior boys’ boarding accommodation is in the main school building, occupying the first and second floors. Both York and Northumberland Houses are for boys aged 11 to 18.

Each House has its own separate dormitories with predominantly one- or two-bed rooms. Unusually, both houses share communal areas, which enhances the experience for Boarders of all age groups.

The main communal space is the Bull Ring, which sits directly above Central Hall and boasts a range of comfortable seating, a pool table and table football.

The nearby K-Comm has a sizeable kitchen where Housemasters teach cooking lessons and a large screen television where the boys can enjoy film nights and major live sporting events.

There are further breakout spaces for quiet reading, games console gaming on a weekend and darts, table tennis and a further pool table.

Northumberland (North’) and York Houses accommodate boys within the historic main school building, with mainly one‑ or two‑bed rooms and a wide range of shared social facilities, including lounges, games areas and kitchen spaces.