Ballystockart Mission Hall (former school house),

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Single storey gabled school house (now a mission hall) of perhaps c.1831, set on a slope to the N side of the Hillhead Road, over one and a half miles N of Comber.

Front (S) elevation has a left of centre gabled porch. The E side of the porch has a plain timber sheeted door. To the S (gable) side is a sah window with Georgian panes. In the tympanum there is evidence of once having been raised (or incised) letters of some kind, but the render has been chipped off. To the left of the porch (on the main S facade) there is a window as previous. To the right of the porch are three similar windows (set at slightly different levels). Timber notice board between first and second window to right of porch.

The W gable is blank. The E gable has a small lean to (now largely covered in greenery), with a doorway to its S face. To the rear are five windows as front. All windows are covered in crude wire grills. The is rendered and lined in places. Eaves course. The roof is covered in natural slate which has been tarred at some point. Rendered parapets to gables. To the E of centre there is evidence of another 'parapet', as if the roof were put on in two sections (?or the building extended). Two rendered chimney stacks. Metal rw goods to front, none to rear.

Historical information

A building is shown on this site on the OS maps of 1834 and 1858 and marked 'Knockmashen School House' on the former and 'Ballystockart National School' on the latter. (On both maps the porch is not shown, however,this may simply be an error as it is not shown on the most recent map either.) The school is recorded in the OS memoirs of 1837 as 'under the National Board' (the board itself set up in 1831), with a Mr. Murphy as the master.

The school appears to have closed in the mid 1900s (c.1950-60) and the building is now used as a mission hall.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL 1B/316A 1st valuation, Comber, 1833.
2 PRONI OS/1/3/10 OS map, 1st ed. 1834, Down 10.
3 ‘Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II’, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB1991), pp.30, 34.
4 PRONI OS/6/3/10/3 OS map, 1st rev. 1858, Down 10.
5 PRONI 2nd valuation, Comber.
6 PRONI OS/2/3/10 OS map, 2nd ed. 1901, Down 10.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Simple single storey school house of possibly c.1830, now used as a mission hall. Externally this building appears to be little altered.