Mount Stewart School

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Long, mainly single storey hipped roof schoolhouse of 1813 construction with late 19th / early 20th century additions including a central gabled two storey section, open gabled porch and fleche. The building is located roughly three miles north west of Greyabbey on the north east (inland) side of the Portaferry Road, and now contains a dwelling and an artist's studio.

The single storey roofs are hipped while the two storey section is gabled. To the roof ridge directly behind the entrance porch is a timber framed fleche which has a tall square lead clad pyramidal roof with metal finial. To the ends of the hipped roof are lead clad triangular dormers, also with metal finials. All sections of the roof are slated. There are two rendered and corbelled chimney stacks to the two storey section with two to the SE on the main roof and one to the NW.

The front (SW) elevation is asymmetrical. To the left of centre is a (relatively) large open decorative timber framed gabled porch with Bangor blue slate roof with metal finial. Within this there is a double panelled and glazed door set within an equilateral arched opening (which leads into the artists' studio).

To the left of the porch are two equilateral arch window openings (belonging to the studio) with casement windows. To the right are two matching but more widely spaced windows. To the right again is a timber sheeted door (house main entrance) with a triangular fanlight over. Above the door and left hand window rises the two storey gable with decorative barges. The paired sliding sash and case windows have triangular heads with a circular commemorative plaque underneath the cill. The overhang of the main roof continues across the front of the gable. To the right of the house doorway are five similar windows.

The NW elevation is blank. The right of the NE elevation is a plain sheeted timber door with rectangular fanlight over. To the left of this is an equilateral arched window opening as front. Immediately to the left of this is a small flat roofed entrance porch with modern window and door.

To the left of this is a large hipped roof return, with a window to its NW side and two to the NE. The SE face of the return has a plain sheeted timber door with an equilateral arched fanlight. This single storey extension abuts a two storey gabled projection which has two windows to the ground floor of its NW facade, and one to the first floor, all as front. The gable has shaped barges. To the left of this projection is an equilateral arch window opening, as before, to the left of which is a second hipped roof section, identical to that at far right, but handed. Left again of this is a timber panelled and glazed door with two arched windows as before. The SW gable is blank.

Historical information

This school is said to have been built by Viscountess Castlereagh in 1813 and was originally a charity school belonging to the Erasmus Smith foundation. It is noted in the 1830s OS Memoirs as a ‘neat schoolhouse’ with an attendance of 45 pupils, both male and female. The school closed sometime in the 1920s and during World War II the building served as a canteen for the soldiers billeted at Mount Stewart. In the post war years it was used as tea rooms. It now incorporates a large studio for artists and a dwelling house and is the property of the National Trust.

The building is shown on the OS maps of 1834 and c.1860 as purely rectangular in plan. Much of the building we see today, including the porch, the returns, the fleche and, undoubtedly, the two storey section is probably late 19th or early 20th century.

References- Primary sources
1 'Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II', ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1991), pp.69-70 [1834]
2 PRONI OS/6/3/11/1 Ordnance Survey Maps, 1st Edition, 1834, Co. Down 11.
3 PRONI VAL/1B/33 First valuation, Greyabbey, c.1834-38
4 Samuel Lewis 'A topographical dictionary of Ireland' (1837)
5 PRONI OS/6/3/11/2 Ordnance Survey Maps, 1st Revision, c.1860, Co. Down 11
6 PRONI VAL/2B/3/4 Second valuation, Greyabbey, c.1863
7 PRONI VAL/12B/23/16a-f Annual valuation revision books, Greyabbey, 1866-1923
8 PRONI OS/6/3/11/3 Ordnance Survey Maps, 1901

Secondary sources.
1 Anne Casement, 'Mount Stewart landscape study' (National Trust Northern Ireland Region, 1995), pp.23, 52-53

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

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

Evaluation

Long, mainly single storey hipped roof schoolhouse of 1813 building with late 19th / early 20th century, somewhat Orné, additions including a central gabled two storey section, open gabled porch and fleche. The building now contains a dwelling house and artist's studio.