Greyabbey Primary School

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Single storey, picturesque, gabled school of 1887 in basalt rubble with Scrabo stone dressings, situated on the south east side of The Square, Greyabbey. The school was originally roughly L shaped but has been extended at the rear in recent times.

The front NW consists of the long upright of the original ‘L’ with a large gabled bay to the NE side and a smaller central gabled porch.

The porch has a timber sheeted double door set in a Scrabo stone Tudor arch with intricate ‘Arts & Crafts’-like carving above the arch, with a decorative plaque with crown and shield (which reads ‘V. R. Jubilee 1887’). Label moulding over carving and decorative plaque. To either side of the porch is a small narrow window with Scrabo stone dressings set on a cill band also in Scrabo stone. The porch is topped with a Bangor blue slated roof with overhang and clay ridge tile finial.

To the left (NE) of the porch are paired mullioned and transomed windows with small upper openers and Scrabo stone dressings. To the right of the porch are two pairs of similar windows, with both pairs separated by a chimney breast (with stack emerging from roof) with decorative carved shield in Scrabo stone. To the far left (NE) on the front facade is a large gabled buttressed bay with mullioned and transomed window, much as before but larger and with label moulding. This window rests on a Scrabo stone cill band (as do all the windows on the original facade of the whole building), with an upper band at transom level. Above the window, to the gable apex, is a small narrow louvred opening with Scrabo stone dressings. There is an overhang with finial (as before) to the gable roof.

The SW facade consists of a similar gabled bay (but with slightly smaller window) to the left (NW) and the SW side of the shorter horizontal of the L shape which contains a window as the bay but without label moulding. The section of the SW facade to the SE of the gabled bay is behind a rubble wall, as this elevation faces into the Portaferry Road.

The NE elevation has two widely spaced windows, much as front with a chimney breast (similar to front) in the centre. The rear of the building, which faces into the school yard has been altered as the pitch of the roof has been extended to cover a modern lean to/corridor brick built extension, with large modern segmental arch headed windows, which now covers most of the inner side of the ‘L’ of the original building.

At the SW gable end of the original building (i.e. the gable end of the horizontal of the ‘L’) the corridor projects beyond and joins to a recently constructed gabled dining hall in similar brick. The remaining section of the original SW gable itself has a large window as gable to front.

To the far right (NE) of the rear is a large (original) gabled bay with a relatively small mullioned and transomed timber window in the centre, without dressings or cill course.

All roofs are pitched with Bangor blue slates and clay ridge tiles to most of the original section of the school, but fibre cement slates to the rest. There are four, tall, part rubble part yellow brick, chimney stacks to the original roof. Cast iron rw goods to original school facade, aluminium to modern sections.

Historical information

This school, (as the plaque to front suggests), was opened in 1887, the year of Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee. The lean to corridor and dining hall to the rear were added in c.1988, however, they may have replaced earlier structures. Prior to the building of this school the local children appear to have been educated at a school house at the north end of the village near St. Saviour’s Church , with infants attending (at least for a time) a school which may have been housed in what is now the C of I parochial hall, on the opposite side of The Square.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL/12B/23/16a-f Annual valuation revision books, Greyabbey, 1866-1930
2 PRONI VAL/12E/99/1 Valuation plan, Greyabbey, 1906-35
3 UFTM W.A. Green Collection WAG 3038 Photograph of Main Street Greyabbey looking south west

Secondary sources
1 Bob Trayte, "The Greyabbey and village" in 'Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society No.16' (1992), pp.2-4.

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

Evaluation

Somewhat picturesque single storey gabled school of 1887 constructed in basalt rubble with Scrabo stone dressings. Much of the original facade has survived, but the rear has been extended recently in brick.