Former school house

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Former single storey school house of 1904, situated on the E side of Main Street at the N end of the small village of Carrowdore. The plan is roughly cruciform, with a shaped (as in Jacobean or Dutch) gable to each elevation. There is a glazed decorative cupola with glazing and a lead sheeted roof. Recently the building has been converted to a dwelling house.

Front W facade has central projecting ‘shaped’ gable with a large mullioned and transomed window. The window is topped by a large decorative sandstone panel with inscription. At each side this gable merges with a small gable which contains an entrance with chamfered sandstone dressings, timber sheeted double door and elliptical arch fanlight. There is a sandstone panel above each entrance.

To the N elevation is an asymmetric shaped projecting gable with window similar to front only smaller to the ‘centre’, with small window to the right.

The S gable was once a mirror image of the N gable but is now has modern double garage doors which take up much of the lower half of the main section of the gable, which much of the former ‘centre’ window now gone. What remains of the upper portion of the window is blocked.

To the rear is another centrally placed shaped gable which has been rendered. This gable has two recently enlarged mullioned and transomed windows to the centre, in the same style as before. To the N and S facades of this rear projection is a small fixed light window. Two large Velux windows to the front and two to the rear. At the intersection of the four gabled sections of the roof is a timber and glazed cupola (?formerly a bellcote) with a lead sheeted ogee roof and finial. Tall narrow rendered chimney to NE.

This building is constructed of dark rubble with sandstone dressings to all (original) openings and as quoins and courses. The roof is (largely) gabled and is Bangor blue slated.

Historical information

This school was built in 1903/4 by Mrs. Nina de La Cherois-Crommelin (formerly of Carrowdore Castle) in memory of her late husband, Frederick. The school amalgamated with Woburn school in 1927 and closed in 1963. During the 1970s and 1980s, the building was used as a factory. In the later 1980s the building was bought by the present owner and converted to a dwelling house

Secondary sources.
1 Susan E. Pack-Beresford 'Christ Church Carrowdore' (Newtownards 1994), pp.61-2.
2 Grace Seymour 'Echoes of Millisle and district' (Rathfriland ?1983), pp.140, 144

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Compact single storey rubble built school of 1904, roughly cruciform in plan with decorative shaped gables and cupola. This building has been converted to a dwelling house in recent times but is still largely intact.