Beechlawn School

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached three-storey three-bay over concealed basement rendered former rectory, built c.1760, with central portico and full-height additions to both side elevations. Rectangular on plan facing west set back on the east side of Dromore Road with several two-storey buildings to the south and to the east dating from the 1960s. Now in use as a school.

Hipped natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles and single replacement chimneystack to the north. Steel guttering on iron brackets to timber fascia on deep overhanging eaves having paired timber brackets below eaves finished with a convex moulding to the facade. Painted pebble dash rendered walling with smooth render (or painted masonry) to all corners and rendered plinth course. Square-headed window openings with painted concrete sills and replacement timber sash windows, uPVC to rear.

Front west elevation is five windows wide with central prostyle Tuscan Doric portico comprising: two pairs of Tuscan Doric masonry columns resting on stone flagged platform and three steps, supporting plain entablature above. Tripartite painted masonry doorcase comprises square-headed door opening with replacement timber glazed door and pair of plain sidelights with plain masonry surround.

North side elevation abutted by four-storey flat-roofed rendered annexe, built c.1960.

Four-storey rear elevation is five windows wide with unevenly spaced uPVC windows.

South side elevation is abutted by a full-height flat-roofed projection and a lean-to wing to the basement. Pebble dash rendered walling with uPVC windows.

Setting
Set back on the east side of Dromore Road on its own substantial site with large bitmac car park to the front, bitmac playground to the rear and two ranges of single and two-storey school buildings dating from the 1960s. Site enclosed to the road by rubblestone wall and splayed concrete walls to pair of steel gates on concrete piers.

Roof Natural slate
RWG Metal
Walling Pebble dash render
Windows Replacement timber sash / uPVC

Historical information

The Old Rectory, which now houses Beechlawn Special School, appears on the first Ordnance Survey map named as ‘Glebe Ho[use].’ The survey shows the Rectory with one major out office along with four smaller buildings and Glebe lands extending from the old Dublin Road to the borders of Large Park. There is also a Gate Lodge present at the entrance by the road which is not named until the second edition of the Ordnance Survey maps. The Townland Valuations (1834) valued the house at £37. 8s. after one third of its value had been deducted. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs for Hillsborough record that the Rectory was the residence of ‘the Archdeacon of Down, the Rev. Walter Mant’ and that he was ‘supported by tithe and glebe lands.’

The second edition of the Ordnance Survey maps (1858) show a number of out-offices surrounding the Rectory, however by the 1850’s there are only 3 large out-offices to the south-west of the Rectory where there had been five in the 1830’s. Also by the time of the second edition two Summer Houses had been built and are named on the map. The Rectory appears to have been continually developed through the years; Brett records that the Rectory was enlarged in 1803, 1828 and 1830 (Brett, p. 17) and by the third edition (1902-3) the ‘Rectory’ is finally named and there is little change to the site until the fourth edition of the maps (1919-1920) in which a large fourth out-office appears to the east of the Rectory building.

Griffith’s Valuation lists the Rectory under the title of ‘Archdeaconry’ and at that time was in the possession of the Ven. Walter B Mant. The valuation shows that the plot extended to 8 Acres and 2 Roods, the buildings and out-offices at £55.0.0. The later Annual Revisions continued to refer to the building as the Archdeaconry until they ended in 1930.

The Rectory changed hands in 1870 when John Gibbs became the new Archdeacon of Down, the first to do so since the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland that same year. In 1892 the Rev. Richard Arthurs Kernan took over residency of the Rectory and found the house and grounds to be too large for his small family. The 1901 Census shows that Kernan lived at the Rectory with his wife Sarah and 13 year old daughter Eveleen Bowie Querall and that the other buildings on his premises included a stable, coach house, harness room, cow house, calf house, shed and store. The House and Buildings return for the same year lists the Rectory as a 1st class house with 28 rooms, now owned by the Church as the landholder is recorded as the ‘Representative Church Body.’

The Annual Revisions show us that the building was too large for Kernan’s purposes, the Rectory building was reduced in value in 1892 from £53. to £42., with an observation by the valuer that the ‘house [is] much too large for tenant and [a] part [is] not occupied.’ The building was devalued again in 1918 to £30. under the tenancy of Rev. Francis Matchett who became Rector of Hillsborough Parish Church in 1913.

Hobart states that the building was originally built in 1762 as ‘either a farm and stabling for the Downshire horses or as a Dower house for the Downshire family’ (Hobart). John Barry, however, records that it was in 1762 that the present building was utilised as a Rectory as ‘until that year there had not been any fixed residence for the minister of the parish, and it was then that Wills Hill gave a lease of 20 Acres of land and a dwelling house to Francis Hutchinson, Archdeacon of Down, and his successors forever’ (Barry p. 76).

In 1951 the Rectory was sold to the Down County Regional Education Committee who decided to convert the grounds into a residential school. In 1954 the Irish Builder notes that Belfast Architects Ferguson and McIlveen were contracted to carry out extensions and alterations to the Rectory to prepare for its new use as a school. In 1955 Ferguson and McIlveen installed a new plumbing system to the School. In 1962 another extension was added to the school, this time by the Belfast based David Wright Boyd & Co. The building continues to be used as a school for children with special needs.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI VAL/1/B/344 A-B – Townland Valuations (1834)
2. PRONI VAL/1/A/3/14 – Field Map (1834)
3. PRONI OS/6/3/14/1 – First Edition OS Map (1834)
4. PRONI OS/6/3/14/2 – Second Edition OS Map (1858)
5. PRONI OS/6/3/14/3 – Third Edition OS Map (1902-1903)
6. PRONI OS/6/3/14/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map (1919-1920)
7. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/45A-C – Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/14A – Annual Revisions 1864-1879
9. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/14B – Annual Revisions 1880-1889
10. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/14C – Annual Revisions 1890-1908
11. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/14D – Annual Revisions 1909-1928
12. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/14E – Annual Revisions 1928-1930
13. PRONI VAL/12/E/102/1-2 – Annual Revisions Town Plan (c.1864-c.1935)
14. Irish Builder, Vol 96, 8 May 1954, p. 467
15. Irish Builder, Vol 97, 9 Apr 1955, p. 378
16. Irish Builder, Vol 104, 23 Jun 1962, p. 496

Secondary Sources

1. Barry, J., ‘Hillsborough: A parish in the Ulster plantation’ (3rd ed.), Belfast, Universities Press., 1982.
2. Brett, C. E. B., ‘Historic buildings, groups of buildings, areas of architectural importance in the towns and villages of Mid Down: Hillsborough, Dromore, Dromara, Ballynahinch, the Spa, Drumaness and Saintfield’ Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1974.
3. Hobart, B. R., ‘The village of Hillsborough Co. Down: A short architectural and historical description’ (Unpublished illustrated book c. 1950s).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
X. Local Interest
V. Authorship

Evaluation

A substantial three-bay three-storey over basement pebble dash rendered former rectory, built c.1760, on the east side of Dromore Road on the southern approach to Hillsborough, now in use as a school. The conversion to institutional use in the mid twentieth century has resulted in the loss of much original fabric and the addition of four storey extensions to each side of the front elevation, which detracts from the building's architectural interest. Despite these changes the former dwelling still retains it's fine proportions and detailing to the front elevation and has rarity value and historic interest as an unusually large eighteenth century rectory.

General comments

Listing Criteria R also applies.