St Patrick's Church Hall (aka Old School House)

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Small, single-storey gable-ended schoolhouse of 1874-76 by Young & MacKenzie in dark rubble with cream brick dressings, pointed arch openings and a symmetrical frontage with twin ‘sentry box’ porches set either end of three tall windows rising into gablets. Latterly used a parish hall, but disused in recent decades the building is set on the eastern side of Victoria Street in the centre of Ballymoney, within the grounds of St. Patrick’s C of I church.

The main section of the school is basically rectangular, with the porches projecting to the south. Attached to the north-east is lower single-storey gabled return, to the west of which is a later, lower, single-storey flat roofed extension, with a smaller lean-to extension rear porch to west of this.

The front elevation faces south. To either end is a projecting single-storey gabled porch, each with a pointed arch doorway with timber sheeted door. Between the porches are three tall pointed arch window openings, which rise into gablets.

The east elevation comprises the gable of the main hall and the (flush) east side of the return. Within the gable is a pair of pointed arch windows with an oculus over. To the right of these, on the return, is another pointed-arch window, which rises into a gablet, as front.

The return and larger rear extension abut a tall boundary wall to the north, and do not appear to have any openings to this side. To the eastern side at the rear there is a small yard, enclosed by the boundary wall to the north, and to the east, by a rubble wall with segmental-headed doorway, whose timber sheeted door has partially collapsed. [Access into the yard was not possible, and photographs of it were only possible over the top of the collapsed yard door.]

The western gable of the main section of the building matches that to the east.

The roof is pitched and gabled with overhanging timber verges and fascias, with purlin ends are expressed externally on verges. The roof is covered in natural blue / black slate with matching fireclay copings. A tall red brick chimneystack rises from the ridge of the pitched roof of the return. Rainwater goods have been replaced in uPVC, but sections are missing.

Walls of the main hall, the return and that enclosing the yard, are constructed in basalt rubble with a battered rubble plinth. The walls to the flat roofed extensions are finished with roughcast render. The windows and door openings are dressed with cream (or straw) coloured clay brick, whilst the sills are cut sandstone. Many of the windows have lost their frames, and those that remain are mainly timber with Y-tracery and hopper openers. The flat roofed extension has a window with a steel frame.

The western boundary of the site is enclosed by a rubble basalt wall with sandstone capping and wrought-iron railings. A pedestrian gate is flanked with square gate pillars with square caps and segmental-headed decorative wrought-iron arch. Wrought-iron ‘hooped’ railings segregate the playground, in front of the building from the remainder of the church site. A kissing gate allows access through these railings to the church grounds and graveyard.

Historical information

This schoolhouse was built in 1874-76 in connection with the neighbouring (C of I) parish church. It was designed by Young & MacKenzie of Belfast, with the cost of construction said to have amounted to £870. The work on the building was completed in early 1876, but the outlay upon it was not defrayed until some time after this, a notice later that year advertising one shilling ballot tickets ‘for a splendid new sewing machine, proceeds to aid in discharging the debt on the new school’, with the draw, appropriately enough, taking place ‘in the school room’ itself. The building is shown on the 1893-94 town plan of Ballymoney, as today, but without the rear flat-roofed extension and lean-to.

The school itself was originally known as ‘Church Street School’, taking its name from that of the street to the south, although the main access appears to have always been via Victoria Street to the west. It appears to have joined the National System in c.1910, becoming ‘Church Street National School’.

The school closed some time after 1926 and the building was later used by the church as a parish hall. It is marked as a hall on an OS map of 1954, with the rear extensions present on a 1970 edition. The building continued as a hall until 1973, when the new St. Patrick’s parish centre was built in Queen Street, to the west of the church.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI D2194/2/1 (1874-76)
2 PRONI ED1/9 (1877-88)
3 OSNI OS9-17-2-2 (1893-94)
4 OSNI OS10-17-6-2 (1921)
5 PRONI ED14/A/328 (1922-26)
6 NIEA OS six-inch map, Antrim 17 (1954)
7 OSNI OS13-22-13NE 1 (1970)

Secondary sources
1 Information supplied by Mr. George Field, Honorary Secretary of the United Parish of Ballymoney, Rasharkin and Finvoy (November 2011)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Small, single-storey gable-ended schoolhouse of 1874-76 by Young & MacKenzie. Designed by a notable firm of local architects, this former schoolhouse was a good example of later Victorian public architecure and is linked to the the neighbouring church. However, although significant in the locale, insufficient fabric survives to merit listing and there are other, better, examples listed.