Bounds Wall with Ball Courts at St Cuthbert's College, Ushaw

The Bounds Wall with Ball Courts at St Cuthbert's College, Ushaw, is a listed building constructed of coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings and roofs made of Welsh slate topped with yellow ridge tiles. The wall forms an approximately 100-degree arc with a radius of about 250 feet.

The main (south) elevation features a high stone wall with flat coping stones. It includes three higher recessed ball places with stepped coping and six segmental arched racket houses that have parapets above. The interiors of the ball places are faced with ashlar and have deeply incised linear grooves on their rear walls, marking the limits of the court. Each ball place also has a small stone-built pent roofed structure on its right side, with front supports that are chamfered and decorated with bar stop-chamfers. This pent structure was an integral part of the game played. The racquet houses have wooden ceilings. To the right of each of the two most westerly ball courts, there are narrow segmental arched openings that provide access to a small two-sided urinal.

The rear (north) elevation shows that the back wall of each ball place is supported by a full-height stepped buttress, while the side walls have shorter buttresses. The pitched roofs of the racquet houses extend at right angles from the rear of the Bounds wall, as do the curving rear walls of the flat-roofed urinals. Various lightweight lean-tos and other structures have been added between these projections and against the back of the Bounds wall.