this period the school was housed first at Overton Hall, Ashover (September 1939 – June 1940) and secondly at Amber Valley Camp at Woolley Moor (June 1940 until July 1945). The school returned to St Helen's House in September 1945. Derby School moved from St Helen's House in 1966 when it moved to a new purpose-built complex in Littleover called Moorway Lane. Following this move St. Helen's House was used as the Joseph Wright School of Art and, from 1972, as an Adult Education centre. Due to the deterioration of the external fabric of the buildings, the centre was moved and the building became vacant in 2004. Sale, subsequent conversion and development of site It was estimated that the building required £5 million of repair work. Unable to afford this, in November 2006 Derby City Council sold the house (and the neighboring Pearson Building) on a 299-year lease, to the property developer Richard Blunt. The original plans were to convert the two buildings into a fifty-room hotel, and to construct an apartment block within a crescent where the current Chapel, gymnasium and craft workshops stand. Planning permission was granted in 2009. During 2008 and 2009 the building was made wind and weather-proof. The interior was generally tidied up and the educational equipment removed. In 2011, due to the economic climate, the hotel development proposals were cancelled. In July 2011 a revised planning application was submitted which proposed converting the two buildings into offices. The building was featured in a short film entitled Derby School – the Sixties Revisited, which was made in September 2012. The film revealed the then dilapidated state of the rooms; including peeling paint and remnants of original blackboards. Following the completion of repairs and renovations to St. Helen's House, in October 2013 a Blue Plaque was placed by Derby Civic Society and Derby City Council commemorating the house as the former residence of William Strutt and Rev. Thomas Gisborne. In 2013 a firm of accountants took out a lease on the offices within the house. the original link structure (which held the school bell and the entrance for all pupils except 6th formers) between St. Helen's House and the Pearson Building had been demolished and replaced by a new decorative wall. work was underway to convert the Pearson Building into commercial units on the ground and first floors and apartments on the second floor. It is