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

Materials: constructed of coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings and roofs of Welsh slate with yellow ridge tiles.

Plan: approximately 100° arc, of c.250 ft. radius.

Main (south) Elevation: a high stone wall, with flat coping stones incorporating 3 higher recessed ball places with stepped coping, and 6 segmental arched racket houses with parapets above. The interior of the ball places are faced with ashlar, and have deeply incised linear grooves etched on their rear walls which mark the limits of the court. Each ball place also has a small, stone-built pent roofed structure constructed against its right, whose front supports are chamfered and decorated with bar stop-chamfers. This structure, known as a pent, formed an integral part of the game played. The racquet houses have wooden ceilings. Immediately to the right of each of the two most westerly ball courts there are narrow segmental arched openings, giving access to a small two sided urinal.

Rear (north) Elevation: the rear wall of each ball place is supported by a full height stepped buttress and the side walls are supported by shorter versions. The pitched roofs of the racquet houses project at right angles from the rear of the Bounds wall, as do the curving rear walls of the flat roofed urinals. Various insubstantial lean-tos and other structures have been constructed between these projections and against the rear of the Bounds wall.