Hall adjacent to St Andrew's COI and 35 Church Rd,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Single-storey rendered school building, architect unknown, extended to rear in mid-20th century. Located on Church Road in Rasharkin, on the southern edge of the village, adjacent to HB04/10/001A St. Andrew''s Church of Ireland. The school faces NE and is rectangular in plan with a pitched roof, a projecting porch to the front and a single-storey flat-roofed extension to the rear.

Generally all walls are smooth render, ruled and lined with quoins at the corners. The window openings have concrete cills and are square-headed to the front (NE) and to the rear (SW) and are lancet style to the front porch and gables(NW/SE). The lancet windows have plain plaster surrounds with keystone motifs and the front square-headed (NE) windows have plaster keystone motifs. The eaves have a painted timber fascia and soffit with decorative saw-tooth moulding on the bargeboard and a carved timber finial at the apex. There is a cast metal ogee profile gutter and metal downpipes. The roof is natural slate with roll-top red clay ridge tiles.

Front elevation (NE)
Symmetrical with a projecting gabled porch in the centre and 2 no. tall square-headed window openings to each side. The porch has a centrally located gothic arch-headed doorway flanked by lancet windows and there is a tall narrow square-headed window opening on each side wall of the porch. Above the doorway on the porch is a recessed rectangular panel with no datestone. Windows are boarded. To the right-hand side of the roof is a plain chimney with slim plain concrete capping and single clay pot.

Rear elevation (SW)
The rear elevation has 3 no. tall square-headed window openings to the left-hand side a large single-storey flat-roofed extension to the right. There is 1 no. square headed window opening to the right of the extension (boarded). The flat-roofed extension has plain smooth render (ruled and lined), painted timber fascias and square window openings with painted timber single-glazed casements.

Side elevation (SE)
Consists of 2 no. lancet windows with leaded lights in stained glass with foliate patterns.

Side elevation (NW)
Consists of 3 no. lancet windows similar to SE elevation (central window slightly larger). The windows are boarded on the outside.

Materials:

Roof: Natural slate
RWG: Generally cast metal
Walls: Smooth render (ruled and lined) over red brick
Windows: Gothic lancet windows - stained glass/Square-headed windows - single-glazed painted timber casements with hoppers.

The hall is situated on a narrow site at the roadside and is set back slightly with a boundary wall, piers and small gate on Church Road. The walling and piers have render similar to the building with concrete copings and pyramidal caps on the piers (replacement metal gate). The site is landscaped to the rear (overgrown) and slopes away gently to the SW. The wall of St Andrew’s Church graveyard borders the site to NW (squared rock-faced stone). To SE is the boundary of a modern 2-storey house.

Historical information

A ‘School Ho[use]’ or ‘School’ is marked on this site on the OS map of 1832-33, 1857 and 1903 with all maps showing two small square structures (set at right-angles to each other) occupying the plot. The main section of the current building appears on the map of 1920, indicating that it was constructed sometime between 1903 and 1920.[ref 1] The school is recorded in successive valuation books as a ‘Parochial School House’, but being exempt from rates, no other details are given which might date the present structure more precisely. A annotation in the valuation book covering the period 1910-29, which simply reads ‘1916’, could be an indication that it is of this year or slightly earlier [2], and this is supported by documents in a (later) NI Ministry of Finance file which contain a 1913 application for the building of a new National School at Rasharkin.[3] It is unclear, however, whether these documents refer to this particular building or another National School which was built around this time further south along Church Road (but which has since been demolished); the current structure looks older than 1913.

The building ceased to be used as a school at some point in the mid-20th century, and is marked as a ‘hall’ on the 1974 OS map. It was probably this change of use that lead to the addition of the rear extension - whose detailing suggests it is of the mid to later 1960s.. The building seems to have been vacated before 2008.

References – Primary sources
1 OS maps, 6-inch county series, Co. Antrim sheet 26, 1832-33, 1857; 25-inch (1:1250) series 1903, 1920, 1974
2 PRONI VAL12B/4/16E-F Valuation books, Killoquin Lower ED, 1899-1929
3 HERoNI FIN 1/184 Plans and specifications relating to the building of the building of a National School at Rasharkin, 1913

Evaluation

A good local example of a simple rural church hall, dating from the early 20th Century and located on the edge of Rasharkin village. Rectangular in plan with gabled porch, it retains original external and internal features including lancet windows with stained glass, and decorative timber barges. Situated adjacent to St. Andrew''s Church of Ireland (HB04/10/001A), it has group value with the church and graveyard. Set on the roadside with its original boundary wall intact, it is a prominent local landmark and of local architectural and historic interest, however it is not of sufficient special architectural and historic interest to merit listing.