For a hundred and seventy-five years James Carr's "low, small and irregular" building had sufficed for the needs of the School. "Deep in the shady sadness of a vale" it had witnessed the gradual change of the Reformation, it had inspired one of the leaders of Puritan Nonconformity, it had seen the child growth of a great theologian and, more than all, it had roused the imagination and fostered the mental growth of hundreds of the yeomen and cottagers of the North of England. But now its work was accomplished. Flushed with new-found wealth, full of a vague aspiration after progress, conscious perhaps of real deficiencies in the old building, these late eighteenth century Governors spoiled the "many glories of immortal stamp." Carelessly they destroyed the ancient building, without a line to record its glory or its age. It was left to a nameless "Investigator C," in the pages of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ to tell the world what it was losing. Future dreams oversoared past deeds.
No minutes survive, but the accounts of the year 1787 describe the expenditure on a new building. Three years later the last item was paid for and a new school-house was standing on the site of the old. It was very solidly built and larger than its predecessor. Over the door was fixed the stone on which the Hexameter inscription "Alma dei mater, defende malis Jacobum Kar" etc., was written, and which had already adorned the face of the old building so long. The old division of an upper and lower school was retained, but otherwise details are few. The new School was built at a cost of £276 16_s._ 8¼_d._ and served its purpose for over sixty years, when it was then itself replaced in 1851.
With new school buildings, greatly increased revenues and a third Master--Mr. Saul--appointed in 1784 with the privity of the Archbishop of York but not licensed--the Governors were eager to get additional statutory power to increase the teaching staff and pay the surplus money away both in leaving Exhibitions and in gratuities to the Scholars at the School by way of encouragement. There is a letter extant addressed in November, 1794, by the Clerk to the Governors to Mr. Clough, who was requested to lay the whole matter before Mr. Withers and get his legal opinion.