Wispers is a Grade II listed British country house in the parish of Stedham with Iping near Midhurst, West Sussex.

The best thing is the site - high above a steep wooded valley with big views S."[2] The house was built in 1874-1876 by architect Richard Norman Shaw for Alexander Scrimgeour, a stockbroker.

Architectural historians Nikolaus Pevsner and Ian Nairn were underwhelmed by the house: they called it "heavy and hearty", "not very good" and "limp and mechanical", adding that the best thing about Wispers is the site.

Renamed Durand Academy, the school aimed to use Wispers as a weekly boarding environment for secondary age pupils, funding the purchase from the profits from its successful leisure and student accommodation business.

It was hoped that the first pupils would start to arrive from September 2012;[11] however in April 2013 the Academy had still not opened, with the National Trust expressing doubts about the development's environmental impact in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty; some residents in the area opposing its opening; and queries over the funding: "Opponents of the scheme, who have consulted Melvyn Roffe, headmaster of a state boarding school in Norfolk, argue that the school's financial estimates are unrealistically low or to quote Roffe, talking to the Independent, "ludicrous".

Margaret Hodge, chair of the public accounts committee, has asked the National Audit Office to investigate the DoE's "investment decision" and the basis upon which the £17 million grant was made.

The South Downs National Park Authority successfully argued that the 375-pupil Durand Academy was too big and its impact on the landscape would be "inappropriate".