Description: The Church National School (mixed) - Holy Trinity - was built in 1853 for 300 pupils. It was erected on the tufa shelf, not far from the New Bath Hotel and Masson Mill, between what is now the road to Cromford and the River Derwent. The stone building cost £1,200. The money was raised from subscriptions, a parliamentary grant of £205, the National Society gave £50 and the Lichfield Educational Board gave £10. (Figures from Whites Directory, 1857). The site was donated by Peter Arkwright. The school's entrances and classrooms were at road level, with a basement level below them for the headmaster's residence. The schoolroom was 55 feet in length and 33 feet wide; this was later divided into four by folding wooden and glass partitions. Underneath the building were the separate vaulted playgrounds for boys and girls; the pupils were able to look, through the railings, down on the river Derwent some distance below. Behind the school is the limestone crags of the recreation grounds on High Tor. These had existed as a leisure resource since a lease was granted in 1822 to High Tor Recreation Grounds Company by Peter Arkwright, who was also a director of the Company. Its limestone crags tower over the River Derwent and this is one of the most spectacular scenes in the county. Ebenezer Rhodes description, written almost 180 years ago, waxed lyrical about the recreation grounds...'This stupendous cliff ... to which the mass of wood, and the deep silent stream that lay enveloped in a dark shadow in the dale below, formed an imposing contrast' ('Peak Scenery', (1824) E. Rhodes, pub. London by Longman) The valley is at its narrowest here, and the equally high Masson hill towers above the opposite side of the valley. A century or more ago High Tor was known as Eagle Crag because Fish Eagles used to nest here.