SEELB Multi-purpose Centre

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Victorian red brick school building with blue engineering brick, terracotta and brick special detailing, facing west onto Downshire Road. Steeply pitched, multi-gabled, natural slate roofs with overhanging moulded barge boards and exposed rafter tails. Cast iron half-round rainwater goods throughout. Three red brick chimneys – two with canted linked flues and brick special cornices.

Entrance bays to each end of facade flank large but unequal bays with a three-bay central section. Principal floor is raised above footpath level and is reached by walkway to entrances at each side; a grassed area at middle slopes down to lower level. This area is bounded by a brick retaining wall with chamfered granite plinth to street and sturdy cast iron railings. Lower garden area to south side. At either end of facade are octagonal brick piers on a square base with a pyramidal stone cap, identical to those on adjoining Masonic Hall.

Front façade: right side is former principal’s residence and is entered through a porch at principal floor level. The flat roof of this porch has a steeply pitched slated pinnacle topped by cast iron finial abutting rising wall behind. Street-facing wall has a semi-elliptical arched opening containing a pair of raised and fielded panel painted doors with fanlight.

To left of this is a large three-storey gable with two-storey canted bay window. The latter has two windows to front and one to each side on both floors. Above it, on the main gable are two windows and, above that, a small lancet in gable apex. All windows have painted timber 1/1 sliding sash windows, with granite cills and roll moulded and stop end chamfered brick specials to jambs. Canted bay finished with a parapet with four terracotta relief panels. Blue engineering brick special courses above and below windows to gable above.

Return wall of bay to south has window at principal level beside entrance porch and modern casement in enlarged window opening above, under a side gable. Above and left of porch is a small, segmental-headed 1/1 sliding sash with half gable above abutting into chimney gable of south wing. Chimney has three canted brick stacks on raised plinth with engineering brick detailing. A second, on the north side wall of bay, is similar.

Middle section of façade comprises a two-storey block with three gabled bays, with two brick buttresses (with ramped tops) between its windows. At lower floor are three openings – to left bay are double doors (painted timber, but not original), and to middle and right are pairs of segmental headed 1/1 sliding sash. All have splayed and stooled granite cills. Blue engineering brick string course at cill level. Windows to first floor are segmental headed 3/3 fixed lights, with side opening casements in outer right window. All are set within Gothic headed brick recesses with herringbone brick infill panel and central terracotta plaque above openings. Cills as lower floor. Below each cill is blue engineering brick detailing. Painted timber signboard below middle window.

Left bay projects, matching right bay, but two storeys and without canted bay window. Segmental headed windows to middle of each floor (4/ 4). Upper window set in Gothic arched panel detailed as those in middle section. Right cheek has a 1/1 sash in segmental headed opening to ground floor. Flagpole over gable. This bay has been extended in width as part of north wing addition to form door opening in wider gable behind, set back from front façade. Segmental headed opening with flush door and plain fanlight.

To the left elevation, on north side, is a long two-storey wing, also with natural slate roof and in red brick but more simply detailed. It comprises four gables at left, each with windows (one now with modern escape door and fire escape) and, at right, six window bays (lighting a corridor with classrooms off). All windows have segmental headed openings with opening casements and granite cills. To rear of this is modern return with plant room.

To the right elevation, on south side, the original building has a side wing with gable and lower rear return forming a wing which forms the south side of a central courtyard to rear of façade block.

The rear wall of the front building forms the west side of this court with a modern door in a broad arch at the lower level, arched window above and gabled return to the side.

To the rear of the school is the modern brown brick Windsor Hill Primary School.

Historical information

School and teacher’s residence erected by the Intermediate School Board to design of W.J. Watson. First cited in 1895 Valuation as “new school in progress”. Thereafter cited as “Intermediate School”, along with Master’s House. Used for a time as Newry Grammar School.

Primary Sources:

1. Valuation revision books, 1866-1930, PRONI VAL 12B/22/14J, pp 138, 152.

Secondary Sources:
2. Irish Builder, vol.36, p.133 (1 June 1894).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Victorian red brick school building with blue engineering brick, terracotta and brick special detailing. A pleasant Victorian exercise in intricate brickwork, but not sufficiently unusual or of high enough quality to justify special protection. The north wing shows changes in educational attitudes with extensive windows to perimeter corridor, and matching borrowed lights into classrooms, in contrast with the more cellular structure of the original block.