Barrack Street Boy's Primary School

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Small single-storey stone-built school house of 1885, now linked to a much larger modern style school building of 1956 and currently used as the school canteen. The building is set on the NE side of Barrack Street.

The building is gabled with a relatively large return to the rear and a ‘porch’ to front. It is constructed in snecked rubble with ashlar sandstone dressings, quoins, bevelled base course, eaves course and parapets, and a slated roof. The windows all have recent timber replacement frames.

The front elevation is symmetrical and faces SW. To the centre of the elevation is the gabled porch-like projection. This has a semicircular-headed window-like recess to its SE face, lined in unpainted cement render. One suspects that the entrance was original to this face (and that the projection was indeed originally a porch); the slight difference in the tone of the stonework and the lack of a sandstone base course, suggests this was the case. To the gable there is a sandstone panel which reads: ‘Barrack Street Strabane Male National School 1885’. To the NW face of the porch there is a relatively small segmental-headed window, with a similar window to the SE. The porch has a moulded eaves course, which continues along the base of the gable. The gable itself has similar moulding to its verge and above the level of the panel. The NW and SE faces of the porch have similar moulding at window head level. This course continues around the much of rest of the building.

To either side of the porch (on the main section of the building) there are two windows as those to the porch itself.

To the main NW gable there is a relatively large Venetian [aka Palladian, or Serliana] window with a moulded ‘archivolt’ which, either side, links to a much ‘heavier’ moulding which extends from the gable kneelers. There is a small slit ventilation opening close to the gable apex.

The SE gable appears to have been identical to that to the NW, however it is now abutted by a lower, single-storey modern style entrance wing, added as part of the 1956 extension. The upper third of the original window to the gable is still visible above the roofline of the extension.

To the centre of the rear elevation of the building is the large return. To the NW face of this there are two windows, as those to front but broader. There are two similar windows to the SE face. The (NE-facing) gable of the return has had a large -but lower- extension added to it in recent times (post 1983). Above the extension the still exposed section of the gable is now roughcast rendered and has a relatively large ventilation opening with grill over. To the right of the return (on the rear façade of the main section of the building), there is a doorway, with recent flat-panel double door.

Aluminium rainwater goods. To the front of the building there is a small garden, with the school grounds enclosed from the roadside by a low rubble wall with wrought-iron railings.

Historical information

This school, originally ‘Barrack Street Strabane Male National School’ was constructed in 1885 at a cost of £845. It replaced an earlier National School (‘Strabane No.1 National School’) which had been built in Townsend Street in 1855. The new school opened in May 1886 with an initial roll call of 99 boys, increasing to 156 the following year.

By the 1950s the number of pupils was practically double the 1880s levels, and a large new extension was added to the rear of the original building. This was completed in 1956 at a cost of £30,000, and officially opened by Dr Farren, RC Bishop of Derry on 25th September of the that year.

Whether the old school building was converted to a canteen in conjunction with the opening of the extension, or whether this took place at some later period is uncertain. A small further extension was added to the return of the old building some time after 1983.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL/12E/187/1/1-12 Valuation town plan of Strabane (1884 [-1908])
2 PRONI VAL/12B/42/31E Annual valuation revision, Strabane ED (1892-96)
3 PRONI VAL/12B/42/31F Annual valuation revision, Strabane ED (1892-96)
4 PRONI VAL/12B/42/31G Annual valuation revision, Strabane UD (1897-1910)
5 PRONI VAL/12B/42/31H Annual valuation revision, Strabane UD (1897-1910)
6 PRONI OS/8/25/2/1-3 OS town plan of Strabane (1905) [The building is marked as ‘Bank House’ on this plan.]
7 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory’ (Belfast, 1905)
8 PRONI VAL/12B/42/31J Annual valuation revision, Strabane UD (1911-22)
9 PRONI VAL/12B/42/31K Annual valuation revision, Strabane UD (1911-22)
10 PRONI VAL/12B/42/31L Annual valuation revision, Strabane UD (1922-31)
11 PRONI VAL/12B/42/31M Annual valuation revision, Strabane UD (1922-31)
12 PRONI VAL/3B/7/14 First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland, Strabane UD (1935
13 PRONI VAL/3C/7/23 First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland, annual revisions, Strabane UD (1936-57)
14 PRONI VAL/3G/159/1/1-3 Valuation town plan of Strabane (1936-55)
15 PRONI VAL/3G/159/2/1-3 Valuation town plan of Strabane (1951-55) [Sheets 1 and 3 are currently missing.]
16 EHS OS map (1:10,000 scale), sheet 72 (1983)

Secondary sources
1 Kennedy, Michael, “Education in Strabane” in Bradley, Jim, et al, ‘The Fair River Valley: Strabane Through the Ages’ (Belfast, Ulster Historical Foundation, 2000), pp.358-62

Other
references
1 EHS HB10/14/002 First Survey report (11 Feb 1970)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

Small single-storey stone-built school house of 1885, now linked to a much larger modern style school building of 1956 and currently used as the school canteen. Though this building has been devalued somewhat by the building of the large extension to the rear, it remains an attractive structure. It has group value with the nearby Church of the Immaculate Conception and Parochial house.