Hamilton House Community Centre

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single-storey pre-fabricated light-weight structure built to the designs of J.A Gaw, dated 1949. Former education facility comprising multiple rectangular units arranged around a small central yard. Flat-roofed brick additions erected later c.1970. Located close to Bangor town centre at the junction between Hamilton Road and Park Road;

Shallow pitched felt roof; overhanging and flush eaves; extruded aluminium rainwater goods, box guttering with circular down pipes. Corrugated aluminium cladding to steel structure rising from concrete plinth; grey bricks laid to stretcher bond. Single-glazed steel-framed pivot and casement windows. Principal doors generally plain timber with narrow glazed panel; stainless steel ironmongery.

The principal elevation (former classroom block) faces south; curtain wall segmented by projecting fins supporting overhanging roof. Each segment comprising from ground level up: corrugated metal cladding; timber over-clad; horizontal split bi-partite windows rising to the eaves soffit. Several plain flush timber escape doors located at various intervals.

The left gable is blank.

The rear elevation curtain walling is finished flush with various glazed and corrugated cladding sections. Adjoining the principal unit to the two individual smaller units of matching details, at the rear, is a single-storey flat-roofed service block and principal entrance; of no interest.

The right gable has a large central glazed section.

The secondary building to the west is a double height hall matching the principal building in style and detailing. The principal south-facing gable is abutted by a single-storey flat-roofed entrance lobby with centrally located double timber doors with continuous high level glazing to the front, left and right cheeks.

The left elevation comprises continuous high level glazing with a single exit door located right of centre at ground level.

The north facing gable is abutted by flat-roofed L-shaped bricked ancillary accommodation; of no interest.

The right elevation comprises continuous high level glazing with a single exit door located right of centre at ground level.

Setting

The wedge shaped site slopes down to the north. Access from Hamilton Road via modern paladin gates. Pedestrian ramp from Hamilton Road south of the hall. Narrow strip of grass with trees at south of the site. Grassed areas to the east and north bounded by low-level hedges. Three-storey Victorian terraces occupied by a mix of commercial and retail to the west. To the north is a two-storey Victorian terrace and detached residential buildings.

Roofing: Felt
Walling: Corrugated aluminium
Windows: Steel
RWG: aluminium.

Historical information

Hamilton House first enters valuation records in 1949 as a ‘new aluminium school’ occupied by the Bangor Borough Education Committee. It does not appear on any of the available small-scale historic maps, but is shown on later valuation town plans where it is captioned ‘Technical School (Hamilton House)’. According to Patton, the architect was J A Gaw, an architect otherwise unknown in Ireland. The school was designed as an annex to the Technical School in the Carnegie Library (HB23/05/006). Newspaper reports at the time called it the “First Aluminium School in Northern Ireland”. (Patton, p.91; Spectator; First General Revaluation)

A plaque inside the building reads, “This building was opened on Monday 16th May 1949 by the Ministry of Education and was named Hamilton Hall to mark the community’s appreciation of the services and technical education of Thomas D Hamilton Esq JP who was chairman [of Bangor Technical Instruction Committee] for 30 years”.

The First General Revaluation records that the school, which was valued at £105, was ‘erected at a total outlay approaching £10,000’, half of which was due to the expense of preparing the site, which was poor. The school took the overflow from the Technical School nearby. It contained ‘three classrooms and accommodates 72 pupils, cloakrooms and sanitary arrangements also provided. Site rent fixed at £50 per annum. Ground is owned by the Council (Gas Committee).’ (First General Revaluation)

In 1954 the valuation was raised substantially to £200 following the addition of further classroom accommodation to the site. (First General Revaluation)

The first aluminium school in Britain was opened in March 1949 in Bristol (Pathe newsreel 21/3/49) during a post-war period which had seen thousands of pre-fabricated houses built around the country from a variety of materials. (www.rwjallen.co.uk) Bristol Aeroplane Company, which had surplus capacity after the war, began to make aluminium pre-fabs and they are likely to have been the manufacturers of the Bristol School. (www.gertlushonline.co.uk) A number of aeroplane manufacturers around the country followed their example, including Shorts, and they appear to have manufactured the aluminium school at Bangor, the first such school in Northern Ireland. (http://forum.keypublishing.com; caretaker information) It was constructed a matter of weeks after the pioneering Bristol example and imitated its predecessor’s characteristic fins, supporting an extension to the roof.

An extensive programme of school building was begun after the war in Northern Ireland, initiated by the Education Act of 1947, with the budget expanding from half a million pounds in 1949 to three and a half million pounds in 1954. Many of the schools were completed using various forms of prefabricated construction, including aluminium. In 1954 about 40% of the work in progress was estimated to be of a prefabricated type but about 90% of the work scheduled to start that year was to be of traditional construction. Prefabricated schools fell out of favour after a very short heyday of a few years, due largely to the realisation that they were no cheaper to construct than more traditional buildings. (Ulster Commentary)

Short Brothers and Harland Ltd are said to have built at least 29 aluminium schools in Northern Ireland between 1949 and 1954, including a primary school at Crumlin. Ashfield School on the Holywood Road may also have been their work. Built between 1951 and 1953 the boys’ and girls’ schools, now gone, were a much larger project than the overflow building at Hamilton Road and were completed for a total of £489,000. (Ulster Commentary)

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI VAL/4/A/4/295A
2. PRONI VAL/3/D/4/1B/10 – First General NI Revaluation, Valuers’ RV Binder (1933-57)
3. PRONI VAL/3/D/4/1B/21 – First General NI Revaluation, Valuers’ RV Binder (1933-57)
4. Ulster Commentary, April 1954
5. Pathe newsreel, 21/3/1949 – available at www.britishpathe.com
6. Spectator, 21st May 1949

Secondary Sources

1. Caretaker information
2. Patton, M, “Bangor, An Historical Gazetteer” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1999
3. http://forum.keypublishing.com
4. www.gertlushonline.co.uk
5. www.rwjallen.co.uk

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A single-storey pre-fabricated light-weight education facility built to the designs of J.A Gaw, dated 1949. The primary interest of this building is the structural system and use of aluminium as a building material, expressed by the projecting fins to the south façade of the principal block. Also of some interest as part of a larger UK-wide programme of school building that resulted in the introduction of innovative building technologies that utilised a surplus manufacturing capacity in the airplane industry (Short Brothers) after WWII.

General comments

Within Bangor Central Area of Townscape Character