Highlands Primary School

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Single storey primary school with harled and whitened walls and natural slate roof. T shaped plan to main building with less well detailed kitchen extension to one side at rear. Building surrounded by tarmac playground and 800mm high wall finished to match school.

Main entrance to playground from Highlands Road aligns with the centre of the front south facing facade. Leg of the T projects two metres as a gabled porch with eaves level slightly lower than main building. Entrance on each side of porch presumably for boys and girls. Two eight pane metal casement windows on central south facade. Sandstone plaque on centre line between: ‘HIGHLANDS NATIONAL SCHOOL 1909’. Small ventilator to roof space above. Gable of porch projects up as a parapet with kneeler stone detail at eaves line. Behind porch on main facade one eight pane metal window to the west side. Blank wall to the east.

Parapet and kneeler stone detail to west gable of school surmounted by a red brick chimney. Two tall eight pane windows on gable around the projecting flue.

Kitchen extension to rear with smaller eaves level and horizontally proportioned metal windows. It also has a projecting flue on its north facing gable. A single tall span window lights the back of the main school to the east of the extension.

Matching the west gable, the east gable has two eight pane metal windows flanking a projecting chimney flue. Above, are parapet walls ending in a kneeler stone and a red brick chimney.

Historical information

Opened in 1909 as a national school presumably as a replacement for Dromore School located on the 1830 and 1848 maps 50 metres away on Baranailt Road. The school functioned until June 1982 when falling enrolment precipitated a move of remaining pupils to Largy School (HB02/03/006). The ownership of the building reverted back to its original owners the McDonald Tyler Estate upon closure, it was sold to Limavady Council as a community hall in 1984. In the field opposite the school is a derelict building probably the former teacher’s house. Dromore School was instituted in 1822 and was associated with the Kildare Street Society.

References:

OSS 1830,1848
Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol 25. P.95.
W E & L B Records

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A simple small country school of no great architectural merit but pleasing in its proportions and of historical consequence to its surrounding community. To the east an ugly council estate detracts from the setting. Not suitable for listing.