The Learning Tree

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single-storey three-bay school built c.1820. Rectangular plan form with adjoining porch and side bay. Located to the east side of Church Road, adjacent to Castlereagh Presbyterian Church (HB25/13/003)

Hipped natural slate roofing with clay hip and ridge tiles; clay finials; yellow brick chimneys with projected moulded cornice course and terracotta pots; replacement uPVC rainwater goods. Ruled-and-lined painted render with shallow moulded corbel eaves course. 2/2 timber sliding sash windows with horizontal glazing bars and horns; masonry cills Replacement plain timber front door.

The principal elevation faces east and is symmetrically arranged. Centrally positioned gable projecting entrance bay, breaking through the eaves, flanked by single windows recessed into segmental arched niches. The porch comprises a front door with plain surrounds and moulded cornice course over, flanked by two diminished windows. Projected plain raked coping course terminated with finial at the gable apex. Centrally located blank plaque with moulded surround. Small windows to either cheek of the porch.

The left elevation is blank.

The rear elevation is symmetrically arranged; four windows wide.

The right elevation is abutted by an asymmetrical single-storey gable ended bay comprising central and left window. Single door to the right of the right cheek; blank left cheek.

Note - Site visit December 2012: since the survey was initially carried out, works have been carried out to the building including the removal of the yellow-brick chimneys, re-slating in natural slate and the removal of all windows, replaced with uPVC.

Setting:

The school is preceded by a large car park accessed directly from the adjacent road. Immediately to the south is a large single-storey flat-roofed timber structure accommodating additional classrooms. Small playground to the rear and large dwelling bounding the site to the north.

Roofing: Natural slate
Walling: Ruled-and-lined render
Windows: Timber sliding sash - (NOTE: December 2012 these are now uPVC)
RWG: Replacement uPVC

Historical information

The school house was first built in 1826 but appears to have undergone substantial remodelling since that time. As an early country schoolhouse it is an unusual survival in a landscape that remains largely rural and agricultural.

The OS Memoirs report that the “School of Castlereagh [was] erected in 1826 by subscription and small donations from Marquis of Downshire. The master receives 2s.2d per quarter from 60 children, total 38 boys and 32 girls, all Protestants. He also receives 10 pounds per annum from Newtown-breda Church. Connected with the Killdare Place Society but receives nothing from it.”

The Kildare Place Society was founded in 1811 in Dublin as the Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in Ireland. It aimed to provide financial support for schools, train teachers, publish suitable textbooks and encourage non-denominational education. The facilities they provided would mean that ‘ignorance shall no longer be the necessary companion to poverty’ and that education could be diffused throughout the country ‘without suffering its progress to be impeded by those sectarian distinctions which have so frequently opposed an insurmountable barrier to the amelioration of the peasantry of Ireland’. (Coolahan)

Between 1812 and 1833 the society received some £216,000 from Whitehall and supported 1,100 monitorial schools but after the establishment of the National School system in 1831, which were also intended to be non-denominational, the Kildare Schools became affiliated to the Church of Ireland. (Smelser)

The school is shown, captioned ‘School House’ on the first edition OS map of 1834 and the dimensions given suggest that this is the building still present on the site today. The Townland Valuation of 1833 lists it as a schoolhouse exempted from valuation with a garden that is valued at £1. It is described as a ‘Kildare St Plain School, a grant from the Marquis of Downshire with the garden’. Dimensions are given for a single storey slated building with porch. The valuation office classification indicates that although less than ten years old, the school house had deteriorated with age.

Griffith’s Valuation lists the building as the parochial school house and it is valued at £3.10s, later raised to £4. The garden is 3 roods and 25 perches in area and the dimensions given, show that an extension to the north had been added by this date. A teacher’s house was added to the plot in 1879 (still present although much modified) which brought the total valuation to £7.10s.

The building is now occupied by ‘The Learning Tree’ which provides pre-school and afterschool childcare.

Note - Site visit December 2012: since the survey was initially carried out, works have been carried out to the building including the removal of the yellow-brick chimneys, re-slating in natural slate and the removal of all windows, replaced with uPVC.

References:

Primary Sources

1.PRONI OS/6/3/9/1 First Edition OS Map 1834
2.PRONI OS/6/3/9/2 Second Edition OS map 1858
3.PRONI OS/6/3/9/3 Third Edition OS Map 1901-2
4.PRONI OS/6/3/9/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1920-21
5.PRONI OS/6/3/9/5 Fifth Edition OS Map 1920-31
6.PRONI OS/6/3/9/7 Seventh Edition OS Map 1938
7.PRONI VAL/1/B/321 Townland Valuation (1828-40)
8.PRONI VAL/2/B/3/18D Griffiths Valuation (1861)
9.PRONI VAL/12/B/17/6A-H Annual Revisions (1864-1929)

Secondary Sources

1.Coolahan, J “Irish Education: its history and structure” Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 1981
2.Smelser, Neil J “Social Paralysis and Social Change: British working-class education in the nineteenth century” Oxford: University of California Press, 1991

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A single-storey three-bay school built c.1820. Externally the building has retained much of its overall character, style and proportions; however recently the chimneys have been removed and the windows replaced with uPVC. The rural setting, adjacent to the Castlereagh Presbyterian Church (HB25/13/003), has been compromised by the addition of temporary classrooms and a gravel car park. Internally much of the joinery and plaster work appears to have survived although partially re-organised and modernised. Historically and socially an important building to the local area. However it is not of sufficient architectural interest to consider listing.

General comments

Note - Site visit December 2012: since the survey was initially carried out, works have been carried out to the building including the removal of the yellow-brick chimneys, re-slating in natural slate and the removal of all windows, replaced with uPVC.