St Joseph's Building

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey building built of rubble blackstone with sandstone dressings, slated roofs and red brick chimneys laid out around three sides of a rectangular court with a wall across the fourth side which contains a pair of ironwork gates mounted on square piers topped by stone ball finials. Designed in a form of Scottish Baronial style with stepped gables. There are wooden window frames to end gables, while all windows within the court are of metal to a modern pattern. Arched openings to the courtyard have been glazed in, also to a modern pattern. The gates are modern, and the court has been given a modern landscaping treatment.

SETTING: The building stands within the grounds of a school, located in a very rural and scenic area. It occupies a slightly elevated position within the grounds and is viewed against a steep well wooded escarpment in the background, with a tarmac driveway around it and modern school buildings adjacent.

Historical information

Built in 1860 as a stable block for Lady Londonderry in association with her residence Garron Tower, to the design of Lanyon and Lynn, architects of Belfast. Later converted into a hotel dining hall, then into St Joseph’s Dormitory for St MacNissi’s Grammar School which took over Garron Tower in 1951, and then into a classroom block.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1903, Co Antrim 20.

Secondary Sources
1. M. McSparran, C. Dallat and J. Irvine, Oh Maybe it was Yesterday (Glens of Antrim Historical Society, 1980), p 20.
2. P. Magill, Garron Tower (Belfast, 1990), pp 47 and 71.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is a former Victorian stable block designed by an important firm of Irish architects, but which has lost a number of original features due to subsequent conversions to other purposes.