A SCHOOL building has gone on the market with a £3million price tag.

Alderley House, which is currently home to Rose Hill School, is being sold as plans move forward to merge the private school with Westonbirt School next year.

The Grade II Listed building, near Wotton-under-Edge, is being marketed by Savills estate agents as a country manor with numerous bedrooms, tennis courts, swimming pool and grounds.

It has been the home of Rose Hill School since 1939, but next year pupils will be journeying eight miles away to a different campus to study.

Rose Hill is merging with Querns Westonbirt School, near Tetbury, which will become Rose Hill Westonbirt Preparatory School taking pupils age three to 13.

Pupils will benefit from the huge range of facilities at Westonbirt, which shares its 250 acre grounds with Westonbirt Girls School.

The mansion, built in 1865, has 10 bedrooms on the first floor and a further 12 on the second flour, along with numerous reception rooms, bathrooms and studies.

In the 20 acre grounds there are tennis courts, a cricket pitch, swimming pool and a separate lodge house. The site was originally home to a Jacobean house built in 1630 and in fact the cellars under the house belong to the Jacobean building. There has already been plenty of interest in the property, mainly from people looking to use it as a residential property.

James Mackenzie, director at Savills, said: "As a school the property is very interesting but as a residential property it is priceless.

"It is a beautiful house in a beautiful part of the country with views of a village church and if a large family moved in they would have ownership of a sports pitch you could only ever hope for along with all the other fantastic facilities.

"If you wanted to change the school into residential use it would be very easy as most of the rooms are in the original state they were in before it was a school and in fact 90 per cent of the interest we have had is from people who want it is as a private property.

Mr Mackenzie added: "The credit crunch has no affect on this market because the kind of people who will buy this house are people that have the money available and don’t need credit to buy it.

"However in a more buoyant market we would usually see developers interested in the site to turn the house into flats or even put more houses on the site."