St Comgall's Primary School

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Largely two storey, symmetrical hipped roof school of 1932 by R.S. Wilshere, in the institutional neo early Georgian style typical of the period, arranged in a quadrangle with rustic brick and render façade with [?Portland] stone dressings. The north front is composed of a (double volume) assembly hall flanked by pyramidal roofed ‘pavilions’, while the remaining three sides comprise of plainer two storey classroom blocks. ‘Within’, are colonnades enclosing a small square courtyard area. The building sits on a rise to the south of Divis Street roughly 1kmW of Belfast city centre (Castle Junction).

The N elevation is symmetrical. To the centre is a broad hipped roof bay which contains a double volume hall. This is flanked by flat roofed recessed bays, (each containing two storey entrance porches), which link to projecting square ‘pavilions’ with (four sided) pyramidal pitched roofs. To the far E and W, and set well back, are the hipped roof ‘gables’ of the classroom blocks.

To the centre of the N elevation is the broad bay. To the centre of this is semicircular arch headed Georgian-paned window with [?Portland ?reconstituted] stone surround with keystone and apron panel. Directly over this is a stone panel with raised lettering which reads ‘ St Comgall’s P[ublic] E[limentary] Schools 1932. The panel sits partly within a parapet with moulded stone cornice and blocking course.. To the left and right of the window are two large panels / bays each flanked by broad brick pilasters / piers Equally spaced within each ‘bay’ are two Georgian-paned windows with a stone sills and both bays have a broad stone course above window level with freeze and cornice.

To the left and right of the broad central bay are the recessed bays. To the ground floor of each is a door opening (now with roller shutter), while to the first floor there is a small roundel with Georgian panes and stone surround.

To the E and W ends of the N elevation outer sides are the projecting square ‘pavilion’ bays. To the ground floor each has a centred, mullioned and transomed Georgian-paned window with a stone surround, sill course and triangular pediment supported on consul brackets. To first floor is a broad window with Georgian-paned casement frame. This window his rests on a broad plain stone sill course. The first floor is finished in smooth panelled render. The outer (E and W) face of each of the pavilions has a mullioned and transomed (Georgian-paned) window with stone surround to the ground floor, and two, evenly spaced, Georgian-paned casement windows to the first floor. The pitched roof of each pavilion is formed as a square based pyramid and has a c.500mm overhang with panelled soffit.

The W elevation (to left of the W pavilion) comprises of a single broad block / bay, (containing classrooms), with overhanging hipped roof. Within this large bay there are three shallow recessed bays each of which is flanked by a plain brick pilaster. To each of the shallow bays there is a large window to the ground floor and to the first floor. Each window comprises of three multi-paned mullioned and transomed lights separated by [?]rendered mullions. The central light of each is the largest. Above the ground floor window is a three part rendered panel and below the ground floor windows is a stone string course.

To immediate left and right of this large hipped roof bay, (and set further back), are much smaller are small flat roofed stairwell ‘towers’. To the W face of the N ‘tower’ there is a tall, multi-pane upper level window with stone surround, and a much smaller windows to the ground level, now boarded up. To the north face there is another ground level window, now partly boarded up. The S ‘tower’ repeats this in handed fashion.

The S elevation is a handed version of that to the N.

The W elevation comprises of a large single hipped roof block / bays similar to those to the N and S but longer (six bays) and with a semi-basement level. Each bays contains windows to each floor, much as N and S elevations, but with two large lights to each. To semi-basement level of each bay there are two (relatively) large windows, all now boarded up.

Courtyard
The walls facing into the courtyard walls are finished in plain painted render. To the N side (i.e. the S facing side) is the double volume main hall. The remaining three faces (N, E and W) contain two storeys with an open arched colonnade to the ground floor and a series of casement windows to the first floor. The whole courtyard area has an intangible central European feel, as if it had been based on a school or some other institution in Austria or southern Germany.

S façade. To the centre of the S façade is a tall plain panel which rises above the eaves to form a parapet. To the centre of the panel is a slightly recessed bay which has a door opening (door now removed) set below a semicircular arched multi pane window. To either side is a pair of multi paned windows set within a slightly recessed panel.

E and W façades. These are identical but handed. To the ground floor of the E face is a colonnade of six semicircular headed open arches. The 2nd and 5th arches extend to the ground to allow pedestrian access to the courtyard while the remainder have low ‘stall risers’. To the far left is a tall narrow window. To the first floor there are six evenly spaced casement windows (one of which, to left on W façade, is blocked).

N façade. To the ground floor there is a colonnade of six arches , all as before, with the 2nd and 5th arches giving pedestrian access to the middle of the courtyard. To the first floor there are 6 evenly spaced openings; the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 6th are casement windows , as before while the 2nd and 5th are door openings with plain margin windows; immediately below the doors are small decorative wrought iron balconies which are supported on cantilever brackets. The E, W and N façades are actually all belong to flat roofed projections each attached to the inner sides of the main hipped roof classroom blocks, and each containing corridors to the upper floor. Above the flat roof of each a small portion of the ‘inner’ façade of each hipped roofed blocks is exposed. Each is brick faced and contains squat clerestory windows, all now boarded up.

‘Outer’ wall surfaces are mainly finished in a ‘well fired’ (‘rustic’) facing brick while inner walls are finished with plain render. Roofs to the assembly hall and the classroom blocks are hipped and covered with a natural slate. Roofs to the ‘pavilions’ are pyramidal and covered also with natural slate. All other roofs are flat. Cast iron rw goods.

To the front (road side) of the school there are decorative iron railings. These may have belonged to the Belfast Model School which previously occupied this site between 1855 and 1922; however they are not the original 1850s railings for a photograph of 1864 shows ones of a slightly different design.

To the S side is a tarmaced playground. To the W and E sides are the former toilet blocks; these are free standing smallish hipped roof buildings. The window openings which face the playground are now bricked up. That to the E is now converted for use as a laundry while that to the W is now used as a ‘Drop In’ centre.

Historical information

St Comgall’s Public Elementary School was built in 1932 to designs by R.S. Wilshire and opened in December 1933. The school closed in 1999-2000.

The building stands on the site of the old Belfast Model School, built in 1855, and destroyed in a fire of May 1922

References- Primary sources
1 Linen Hall Library ‘The Irish Builder’, 2nd December 1933.

Secondary sources
1 Robin Wylie, ‘Ulster Model Schools’ (Belfast 1997), pp.8-20

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

X. Local Interest
Z. Rarity
V. Authorship
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

Well proportioned largely two storey, symmetrical hipped roof school of 1932 by R.S. Wilshere, in the institutional neo early Georgian style typical of the period, arranged in a quadrangle with rustic brick and render façade with [?Portland] stone dressings. The north front is composed of a (double volume) assembly hall flanked by pyramidal roofed ‘pavilions’, while the remaining three sides comprise of plainer two storey classroom blocks. ‘Within’, are colonnades enclosing a small square courtyard.