Larne and Inver Primary School

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey school with hipped roofs and white-painted roughcast walls. It stands within the town, bounded on three sides by the public road, and is clearly visible from the elevated dual-carriageway to the north.

Main entrance faces north, in centre of a symmetrical elevation. Main entrance central in flat-roofed single entrance bay; double doors of wood with glazed panels, sidelights and rectangular fanlight; rectilinear ironwork railings to parapet; cast iron gutter and downpipes; Bangor blue slates in regular courses. Central clock turret with hipped roof breaking main roof, with clock face between end pilasters. Hipped end bays to main front, each five windows wide. Windows horizontally pivoted iron with fixed lower light, to first floor; similar to ground floor, with translucent glass, plus low level windows, pivoting only. East elevation with stepped roofline; single window in block surround incorporating name panel, above projecting side entrance with swept lead-covered lean-to roof. Flush double doors, not original, in rectangular opening surmounted by panel indicating original ‘boys’ entrance.

South elevation plain, twelve windows wide each floor.

West elevation as east but later windows inserted; entrance labelled ‘girls’. Extending to south side a single storey link to new extension. Rubble basalt boundary walls with wrought iron gates and railings of 19th century appearance, probably retained from earlier school on site.

Historical information

Erected in 1931 to the designs of R.I. Smith, Chief Architect to the Northern Ireland Office of Works, for the Larne Regional Education Committee, as a rebuilding of an earlier school on the site. According to contemporary newspaper reports it was finished on the outside with 'Snowcrete'; its windows were of patent design; floors were laid with maple; special attention had been given to the lighting of the various classrooms in both storeys; the walls were lined with 'Astroplax'; and it was the fourth new school building to be erected by Larne Regional Education Committee in two years and cost £9549.

References - Primary

1. Belfast News-Letter, 19 January 1929.
2. Belfast News-Letter, 8 November 1931, p 10.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

An example of an inter-war school whose design came from the Government architect’s office, which retains its original appearance, but is of insufficient architectural interest to merit listing.