Former Dundrod National Agricultural School

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Small and relatively plain single storey gabled school house of 1847, now a Sunday school, whose bellcote and chimney stacks have been removed in relatively recent years. The school sits to the E of the crossroads in the tiny hamlet of Dundrod. It is adjacent to the Presbyterian church.

The front elevation faces to E-NE but is referred to as E.

To the centre of the symmetrical E elevation is a projecting gabled porch. The front door is plain and has vertical boarding. Directly above the door is a small slightly recessed panel inscribed with ‘Dundrod National School’. The N and S sides to the porch each have a tall narrow 6/6 sash window. A small bellcote, which was inscribed with a date of 1847 has been removed (it was still present in 1972). The upper panes to the upper sash have an irregular ‘brick’ proportion’. To the left and right are two windows each with a 16 pane ‘bottom hung’ tilting window.

The N gable is blank. A small lean-to extension was removed some time after 1972.

The S gable is much obscured by a small lean-to projection but the remainder of the face is blank . The east face of the lean-to has a timber sheeted door while the S face is blank and the W face has a blind window opening. The lean-to is set back from the main façade but merges with the rear elevation.

The rear elevation has five evenly spaced paired sash windows. As before these are 6/6 and again the upper panes to the upper sash have a ‘brick’ proportion.

The walls are finished in plain render with a painted plinth. The roof was recently covered with asbestos free slates. Gable chimney stacks have also recently been removed. Rw goods are PVC. The roof has a pronounced overhang and the eaves and soffits are finished with plain boarding.

Historical information

This school was built in 1847 as Dundrod Ordinary Agricultural School. It replaced two earlier schools, Dundrod No.1 National School and Dundrod No.2 National School, the former of which had been in operation since at least 1833.

‘Agricultural’ schools, as the name suggests, specialised in the teaching of farming skills- crop and animal husbandry etc, and to this end they normally had a small plot of land attached (and Dundrod was no exception). When the National School system was set up in 1831 provision had been made for such schools, but by 1844 only eleven such institutions, both ‘Ordinary’ and ‘Model, had been established in the whole of Ireland. With the onset of the Great Famine the following year, however, the need for greater awareness of basic farming methods and the dissemination of the knowledge of non-potato crops in particular, became pressing. It was in such an atmosphere that the Dundrod school was built, the need for a strong agricultural aspect to curriculum recognised both by the local poulation, and, more importantly, by the local landlord, the Marquis of Hertford. Hertford supplied a plot of farm land and helped pay for the construction of the schoolhouse itself.

The school itself opened on the 1st of May 1848 with Isaac Lowry as master. Lowry appears to have been a poor teacher, with little interest in the agricultural side of things in particular. By early 1851, this disinterest, combined with a degree of local apathy and a waning enthusiasm on the part of the Marquis of Hertford, began to cause problems. The Marquis withdrew his aid, and the lease of the farm reverted to him in April. In September Lowry resigned his position and at the end of that month the school closed. When it reopened at the start of 1853 it was deprived of its farm and became a ‘straightforward’ National School. No doubt the end of the Famine had much to do with this outcome, for many other such Agricultural Schools established during this period suffered a similar fate.

The Dundrod school continued in operation, (latterly as a Primary School), until the mid 1970s. After this the schoolhouse itself became a church hall, used by the neighbouring Presbyterian church. In recent years the chimneys, the bellcote (considered an extravagance when erected in 1847 at a cost of £10), and a small return to the north elevation have all been removed; the roof has also been re-slated with artificial tiles.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI D.427/12 Map of the Parish of Tullyrusk by Thomas Pattison, 1833
2 PRONI ED/1/3 pp.46, 62, 76 Report on Dundrod Ordinary Agricultural application, Report upon the application for aid towards building a schoolhouse at Dundrod etc., 1847 [The ‘ED’ volumes are now on microfilm- PRONI ref MIC.548.]
3 PRONI ED/6/1/1/1-4 National School’s Register, old County book, Antrim, vols 1-4 [1840s-50s]
4 PRONI OS/6/1/59/2 OS map c.1857, Co Antrim sh 59
5 PRONI Second valuation, Tullyrusk parish, c.1861-3 [in print]
6 PRONI ED/1/8 p.57 Report upon salary of an assistant teacher at Dundrod, 1877

Secondary sources
1 John A. McIvor, ‘Popular education in the Irish Presbyterian church’ (Dublin, 1969)
2 Donald H. Akenson, ‘The Irish educational experiment’ (London, 1970)
3 Michael Graham, ‘The provision of educational facilities in the Dundrod district’ (BA dissertation, Stranmillis College, 1977) [This dissertation is based on a thorough study of the original source material and a definitive list of
references is supplied.]
4 ‘A history of congregations in the Presbyterian church in Ireland’ (Presbyterian Historical Society, Belfast, 1982)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior

Criteria for listing: historic interest

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

Evaluation

A rare example of an Ordinary National Agricultural School that remains with many features still intact.