Former schoolhouse at 80 Glenanne Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Single-storey former schoolhouse, built in 1885. The building is set in a rural location to the east of Glenanne Road, about 6km SSE of Markethill, and is located just south of a dwelling house that appears to have been the schoolmaster's residence.

The building is a relatively simple rectangular, gable-ended structure set on a NE-SW axis, with a gabled potch projection with small lean-to, to the SW end and a later (c.1960s) flat-roofed extension across the full width of the NE end.

Much of the cement render has recently been stripped away revealing rubble stone walls. To each of the long SE and NW sides of the main section there are four pointed arch window openings with timber sliding sash frames with double-lancet tracery, with a similar window to the gable of the porch. The main entrance is to the NW face of the porch and has a metal-sheeted door.

The overhanging roof is covered in natural (Welsh) slate with decorative timber barge boards, and decorative clay ridge tiles. The flat-roofed extension has several small high-level windows. There is a datestone, (which reads 'Glenanne AD 1885'), set close to the eaves on NW elevation. Mixture of CI and plastic RW goods.

Historical information

The date stone on the northwest elevation suggests that this former schoolhouse was built in 1885. It is shown on the 1906 OS map and marked as a ‘school’, with the neighbouring dwelling house to the north also present. As both buildings seem to have always shared the same drive it would seem that the house may have been the master’s / mistress’s residence. Strangely, the school is not recorded in any of the pre-1929 valuation books.

Originally, the school appears to have been part of the National (School) System, becoming a primary school after 1948. It was still acting as such in 1957, but closed some time before 1979. Its role after this is not certain, but it appears to have been used for indoor sports for part of the time.

Externally the structure has witnessed several changes over the years, most notably the extension to the porch and the addition of the toilet block, map evidence suggesting both of which were built post-1957, The school may have seen an extensive refurbishment several decades prior to this, however, for in November 1929 it was described in the 'Portadown Times' as ‘a disgrace to everyone’, medical officers reporting that it was ‘smelly and bad’ with WCs that were ‘deplorably foul and dilapidated…not kept in good order.’

Glenanne itself developed in the course of the 19th century as a mill village. The mills themselves (one of which was to the west of the present Glenanne Road, the other to the northeast, between Lower Lisdrumchor Road and Glenanne Road), were established by William Atkinson in 1816 and were originally cotton-producing. By 1838 250 were employed there, many occupying at row of dwellings at the northern end of the settlement, that later evolved into two long, two-storey terraces (‘Orange Row’).

The mills were acquired by William Gray & Sons of Dublin in 1845 and subsequently converted to linen manufacture. Owned by John Compton & Co. from c.1937, the business was sold to a Belgium company in 1998 and remained in operation in Glenanne until 2009. The remaining mill buildings were demolished in 2014.

References - Primary sources
1 OS maps, 1835, 1862, 1906, 1955, 1979
2 OS Memoirs, 1838
3 ‘Portadown Times’, 22 November, 29 November 1929

Secondary sources
4 https://www.armaghbeds.com/blog/2015/02/glenanne-mill-local-mattress-advances-global-impact/ [accessed 10/05/2021]

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Relatively simple, single-storey late Victorian schoolhouse of 1885 with pointed arch windows. A largely unremarkable example of its type, ths building's interior appears to have been stripped of its original detailing in the mid-20th century.