St. Louis Convent

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Red brick, multi-gabled late Victorian and Edwardian building with bargeboards, dormers, steep slated roof and attached chapel in same style. There are attached outbuildings to the south, outside of which are gardens that include decorative gate piers, a small cemetery and a small corrugated iron gabled shed. A short distant to the north, the convent complex also includes a large range built in a similar, but simpler architectural style, that once housed the Orphanage and Industrial School, and original Primary School. This is not included in the detailed survey of the convent.

Front Façade: The main part of the building, which faces east north-east, comprises a three and half storey, three-bay gabled block with a two-bay three storey projecting gable extension. A lower two-storey two-bay range links this extension with the chapel on the south. The front façade has long rectangular windows, all except the dormers being grouped in pairs and have relieving arches in the same form of brick as the walls, save the ground floor windows of the projecting gable whose relieving arches are of a lighter, yellow, brick. All formerly had sliding sash frames, one over one, but all have now all been replaced with uPVC one over one top opening frames. The whole front façade, including the canted east end of the chapel chancel, has narrow horizontal sandstone plat-bands; these are six in number on the main block and run on level with the window cills and just below the ashlar window lintels. Just above the ashlar lintels of each floor also runs projecting moulded string courses of a darker sandstone, while a large moulded cornice, also of a darker sandstone, runs beneath the eaves. At the north west end of the façade is a brick early gothic style two-tier buttress, while iron gutters beneath eaves connect to four cast iron downpipes, all painted red.

The three-bay gabled block has three dormered roof windows or lucarnes, all with wooden decorated bargeboards and dropped pendants, matching the barges and dropped pendant of the large gabled projection on the south-east side. The steeply pitched roof of natural slate above is surmounted at the gable ends of the three-bay block by substantial plain brick chimney stacks; a smaller brick chimney stack crowns the gable end of the lower gabled extension on the south side.

Centrally placed in the three-bay main block is a projecting brick porch with sandstone quoins (all flush with the brickwork) and with a Tudor-arched ashlar moulded door opening. A hood moulding over this door continues around the sides of porch and over each of the long rectangular window openings in each of the porch side walls. The porch has an ashlar projecting plinth and is surmounted by an sandstone castelled parapet with centrally positioned mini-gabled centre-piece supporting a stone carved cross. On the two storey extension there is another projecting porch, also of brick with projecting plinth and ashlar carved parapet. It has a straight headed door with moulded ashlar surround on one side, flanked by a long rectangular window with plain ashlar surround on the other. The door is approached up a small flight of five stone steps, flanked by a low brick balustrade with stone coping.

North End Gable of Main Block: Has decorated bargeboards similar to those used on the front elevation. Wall of attic composed of exposed brick, wall below is rendered. Only one window on the first and second floors (both at the west end); these have uPVC frames, one over one hoppers. A 1960s lean-to wooden extension on the west end of the ground floor accommodates a door and short passage entrance to the kitchen area.

Rere or West Elevation: Except for the church and two storey adjacent extension, all with brick walling, the remaining part of the rere façade has cement rendered walls, including the two storey kitchen wing. Windows have uPVC one over one top opening frames, except for one ground floor window of the kitchen wing, which retains an original six over six sliding-sash frames, which is a surviving relic of the early Victorian house. The roof of the main block has three dormers matching those on the front, except these have plain wooden bargeboards, as has the large gable of the south extension. There are also three small roof lights on the main block and a projecting fire escape down the north side of the wall. The kitchen wing has a double hipped roof and a tall brick chimney stack. A lean-to arcade, added to allow access to the church c.1902-04, has a pitched roof of natural slate, continuous glazed walling of casement windows with centrally placed double doors giving access to the gardens.

Chapel: The chapel has brick walls which like the front façade is articulated by sandstone plat-bands. The chancel or sanctuary at the east end has a canted apse with hipped slated roof and three gothic window openings, all with ashlar surrounds with cusped, trefoil mouldings. All have hood mouldings which terminate in decorative carved ball-flower bosses. The iron gutters of the cornice are supported by decorative stone brackets or modillions, and these are also continued on the the long side of the church. There are five regularly spaced lancet windows down the long south side of the church; none have cusped mouldings, but all have ashlar surrounds and have hood mouldings with decorative ball-flower terminals. It has a projecting plinth with ashlar coping and four early gothic-style buttresses. The west gable end of the chapel has a large mid-gothic style reticulated stone tracery window (thereafter the Great Window) incorporating surmounting circular openings and no cusping. On ground floor level below the Great Window are two rectangular openings, each with a stone mullion, and with ashlar surrounds. The projecting gables of the church roof have stone coping and decorative ashlar kneelers. The roof itself has natural stone slates with decorative tile ridge cresting, while the west gable is crowned by a pedimented brick bell-cote surmounted by a small stone crucifix. The north side of the chapel has a two storey lean-to brick extension with slated roof, accommodating the gallery staircase and entrance porch. This has a large doorway with stone surround at the west end, a Tudor-ached window above and two pairs of long rectangular windows on the north side, one on each floor.

Outbuildings:

Rere Range to Convent Block: Long two-storey early Victorian gabled and rendered range located immediately behind convent and running parallel with it. Contains two coach houses (facing the convent), one with segmental arch and original ledged and braced double doors. Range also contains former stables, accommodation for former groom (chimney removed) and former grain storage areas on first floor. At right angles to rere of this range on south side is a three bay two-storey buildings, with steep slated roof and whitened brick walls. Contains coach house, and grain storage area over. No chimney.

Corrugated Iron Shed: Small but striking single storey gabled shed located upslope from the former coach house range. Clad in red painted corrugated iron and probably built tin the 1920s.

Gate Piers: Gardens to rere of convent are access through a good quality decorative iron gate flanked by ashlar piers with cusped gothic panels on each face and distinctive ogee shaped cap stones. Unusually, the piers are placed diagonally to the gate. The piers are linked each side to a low wall with simple iron railing.

Gardens: Sloping ground behind convent occupied by simple garden with lawns, miniature trees, shrubs and concrete paths. Base wall of former rectangular glasshouse lies on the north edge of garden.

Cemetery: Small grass plot at top of garden, enclosed by low walling and entered from the south side from garden by a simple but attractive iron gate.

Annex Building: Former industrial school and orphanage, opened in 1881. Located a short distance north east of convent on east-west axis, and built in the same red brick style with ashlar plat-bands and decorated bargeboards, but all in a much simpler style. At the west end it comprises a two-storey four bay gabled range with steep slated roof, full height canted bay at east end of front, three dormers at front and four at rere. A low narrow two-storey range, with adjoining pair of tall stone-cut Tudor-arches, serving as the building’s entrance, is links the west range to a double pile three-bay multi-gabled two-storey range with steep roofs at east end. A lower two storey gabled range with dormers is attached to the north-east of this building. All windows of this building complex have been replaced with uPVC top opening frames, while all original interior features of entire building have been removed and modernised.

Historical information

Convent and associated chapel were built between 1876 and around 1907. The building incorporates an earlier house of c.1840, known as ‘Shantally Lodge’, the outbuildings of which still survive to the rere. This house replaced a farm house on the site, which was named on the 1830s OS map as ‘Fee Farm’; at that time it was linked to St John’s Church of Ireland and its Glebe house, both located a short distance to the west.

By the 1860s, if not before, ‘Shantally Lodge’ had become the parochial house of the Roman Catholic parish priest for Middletown. During the 1860s Canon William Quinn, sought to bring the Sisters of St. Louis to the village. He never lived to see his wish fulfilled, but when he died in 1869 he left his residence to be used as a convent. His successor Canon John Quinn continued to press for a foundation, which was granted in 1875.

The Sisters of St. Louis initially came to Ireland at the request of the Bishop of Clogher to open a reformatory in the town of Monaghan - to care for deprived and delinquinct children in 1859. The foundress was Mother Genevieve Beale, a member of a distinguished London Quaker family who had come to live in County Cork; she had been converted through contact with a Mrs Woodlock, a member of the newly founded French Sisterhood of St. Louis based at Juilly.

The Middletown Convent was started in 1875 with just three nuns led by Mother Elizabeth O’Donovan, the foundress, living initally in Shantally Lodge. At first the nuns started a day school for girls (which later became a National School), but very quickly the establishment grew to include an Orphanage and Industrial School, a small boarding school and a novitiate. Building work seems to have started in 1876 with the villagers supplying all the materials, stone, brick, sand and gravel. The Orphanage and Industrial School, together with the original Primary School, were housed in a large red brick block located a short distance west of the main convent. This was built with grants from the Office of Public Works and was officially opened in 1881.

The building of the main convent itself was constructed over a longer time span and with very much more architectural detail (than the school), both externally and internally. It was built in three phases, the first two being finished by 1886 and the last phase, the building of the Chapel of the Sacred Heart, undertaken between 1902-04 and internal embellishments added 1904-07.

No records have emerged relating to the actual process of construction, but on stylistic grounds the convent can be credited to the Roman Catholic architect William Hague (1836-1899), who specialised in religious buildings; two of his convents are were located nearby; namely the St Clare’s Convent in Keady (1877) and the Convent of Poor Clares at Ballyjamesduff (1881-3). Hague’s distinctive style is evident in the treatment of the dormers, bargeboards, windows and above all in the exposed roof trusses. Hague died in 1899, before the actual building of the chapel, but his practice was continued by his managing assistant Thomas Francis McNamara until 1907-8.

At the time of the building of the Middletown Convent, Hague was also involved in work at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, where he designed the sacristy and synod hall (1894-7), vestry (1891) grand entrance, gates and sacristan’s lodge (1884-6). When he died he was engaged on the great rood screen behind the high altar (Executant Professor Pietro Lazzarine, Carrara). Though the original rood screen in the chapel at Middletown, as seen in old photographs, was a much smaller affair than Armagh Cathedral, there were close parallels, suggesting the same craftsmen were involved. Indeed, there may be more than a grain of truth to the tradition carried down by the nuns that that artists, who decorated the Sacred Heart Chapel were also involved at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh.

The finest item in the Sacred Heart Chapel is undoubtably the marble altar, said to have been executed in Italy. It was erected by a builder, Henry Pearce, and his son Willie, brother of Patrick Pearce, one of the leaders of the 1916 Rebellion in Dublin. A small bronze plaque on the altar commemorates this in Gaelic. After the changes heralded by Vatican II, the original altar was cannibalised to allow a second altar to be built further forward, to allow the priest to face the congregation while celebrating mass. The carved central panel was removed from the original altar for this new altar while the original magnificent rood screen was dismantled.

The building of the Sacred Heart Chapel was made possible though a donation of £1,000 from the will of a returned American émigré, Mr. J. McQuaid of Middletown, who died in 1894. Plans may have been prepared by Hague shortly afterwards, but available evidence suggests that building work did not begin until 1902. It must have been structurally finished by 1904 when the chapel was used to celebrate a requiem mass for the foundress, Mother Elizabeth O’Donovan, who died in January 1904. Work decorating the chapel continued until at least 1907, this date being revealed during restoration work carried out by H. Largey, an Armagh artist and teacher, in 1975. The dedication of the chapel by Cardinal Logue took place on the Feast of Sacred Heart in 1919

The boarding school closed in 1942 and after the war the sisters were requested to bring industrial/orphanage school into line with new thinking on child care. On acceptance of the invitation of Ministry of Home Affairs, St Josephs training school was established in 1952. In 1970 the new St Louis Primary School opened in the convent grounds and old primary school became part of the Training School complex. The house units opened October 1972 and the following year saw a modernized school building functioning. In the 1990s the old training school building became a centre for the study of autism.

References
In addition to oral history information supplied by the nuns, sources include:
Guide to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh (1904), p64
Harrow, Fergal Tomas (1996) ‘William Hague, FRIA, an architectural appraisal’. Breifne, VIII, No. 32, pp682-4.
Small pamphlet on convent.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

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

Evaluation

Well proportioned and detailed former convent and chapel built 1876-1904 in a distinctive style of red brick walls with sandstone trim, steep roofs, gables, dormers, bargeboards and brick chimneys to designs of William Hague. The chapel, built 1902-04, is remarkable for its internal decoration added in 1904-07 - this includes unique (for N Ireland) highly decorated painted walls, stations of the cross and a panelled and painted ceiling. The chapel also includes a gallery with cusped gothic balustrade, and a chancel with very high quality fittings and mosaic flooring all possibly undertaken by craftsmen (some Italian) working at nearby Armagh Cathedral at that time. The former convent and chapel are enhanced by the outbuildings associated with the previous house on this site part of which is incorporated into the convent. The convent and chapel have significant historical and social interest for the local community.