Abandoned rural school awaits its fate

October 2026

Driving across any county, city, town or village and you will often see remnants of educational institutions of the past. One and two room school houses can still be found in rural and formerly rural areas, some repurposed and some abandoned and crumbling.

On a rural county road outside of Creemore, Ontario, sits the abandoned Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Elementary School. Opened in 1961 in Sunnidale Township, the small 5,177 square foot building housed two permanent, a small library and administrative offices. Later, five portable classrooms were added as enrolment increased.

The school was built on a donated 5-acre piece of land, using private funds raised directly by local Catholic families tied to the nearby mission church, St. Noel Chabanel Mission, under St. Patrick’s Parish.

As the decades passed, more and more small rural schools were shut down and the student population housed in larger central schools, but Our Lady of the Assumption carried on, celebrating its landmark 50th Anniversary and Reunion on 2-3 July 2011. However, the school was already on borrowed time.

The aging school was operating on private well and septic infrastructure rather than municipal services, making any future expansion impossible, including the addition of a gymnasium, something the school lacked.

The property was prone to flooding, and the building was eventually deemed too financially prohibitive to repair. At the time the student population was just 78 students, leaving the Simcoe County District Catholic School Board little choice but to close the school at the end of the school year in June 2013.

The building was put up for sale as a as a private residence/studio layout. Today, the abandoned school is eerily silent today, no longer filled with the sound of children, school bells and teachers.

Property Description
Address: 4823 County Road 9, New Lowell, ON
Legal Description: Part of the North ½ of Lot 22, Concession 4, WSR, Sunnidale Township.

Sources: Catholic school board submits cases for new school in Clearview, expansion in Wasaga, Close New Lowell school?