My Summer with Loudoun Schools: After Sterling Annex

A field with overgrown foliage grows around with a concrete cut right down the middle. In the distance are sport field light posts and parked vehicles.

In 2023, I thought I would only have one more Sterling Annex entry to write after its demolition, a nice little epilogue on the pocket park to memorialize the school. That prediction ended up being incorrect. I was in the area recently and decided to swing by, thinking maybe there would have been changes by now. But no, things look fairly similar to how I left them.

Since the Sterling School building's demolition, there really hasn't been any other activity on the site. It continues to be used primarily for extra car parking for the Lindsay Automotive fleet. I reached out to my contact with Lindsay, who told me there's been a few delays with the county in the process of building their detail facility and adjoining pocket park on the site. They're hoping to start construction by the end of the year.

So in this interim period between destruction and creation, I'm going to look around, see what looks interesting architecturally.

What remains on the site? Pretty much everything except the school building. As evidenced in the first photo, the front path that led up to the main entrance is still in place. It now leads to dirt and spindly grass. There are three piles of brick, most likely saved to be reused in the pocket park.

A patchy field with yellow, long grass. In the foreground is a pile of brick. Green trees are in the background.

School's out forever

There's some fun finds in the brick piles. One that warmed my heart was seeing a surviving section of a brick arch that used be above one of the side doors. No idea if it was over my favorite or its duplicate on the opposite side of the building.

A brick pile laying by pebbles and yellowing grass. In the foreground is a section of bricks still connected by mortar. The piece is intentionally curved.

Part of one of the brick arches!!

Close-up of the backside of a rusted bell in the brick pile. Some wires and machinery are visible.

Also found in a pile was a rusty school bell

This light pole that used to be in the middle of the parking lot is still there.

A light pole surrounded by four smaller faded-red poles. The weeds are mown down. In the background is a yellow field of grass and, further away, trees and larger foliage.

2024 light pole

Picture of a rundown brick building with overgrown plants. To the left is a light pole in a gravel parking lot. Grass is starting to grow through a portion of the gravel. Four little faded-red poles around the light pole's base are mostly obscured by weeds.

2023 pre-demo photo with the same light pole (left)

The baseball backstop and its infrastructure are untouched, still used as the main parking lot on the site.

Cars are parked next to a baseball backstop on both sides. The backstop is partially obscured by overgrowing foliage.

Baseball backstop and parked cars

Near the site's corner, the brush has been cut back so utility lines can be identified. This has also uncovered some of the wooden rail fence.

Some overgrown foliage that has been cut away next to a road. A graying wooden rance fence is partially visible. There are bright orange and red spray-painted lines and mark on the remaining foliage and road.

Finally, by the former playground, the forest continues to grow. The fence that surrounds that little area is still in place, but slowly disappearing behind the foliage.

Overgrown foliage. A line of stakes with rolled-down black plastic tarp runs diagonally from the view. On the right is a wooden post, partially obscured by foliage.

So, that's what you can find at Sterling this year. Not what I expected, but still interesting. I'll see you back here one last time (knock on brick?) next year.