Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB15/06/048

Address :
Former Poyntzpass Primary School Railway Street Poyntzpass Co Armagh BT35 6SN

Townland:
Federnagh

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Survey 2:
B2

Date of Listing:
29/06/2007 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:

Former Use
School

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
237/6NW

IG Ref:
J0598 3936

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Owner Category

Financial

Exterior Description And Setting

Single storey symetrical mid Victorian former National School. There are two separate classrooms to the rear, entered through lobbies with entrance doors to the sides. The accommodation is completed by two small back to back stores between the lobbies. Walls are rendered with a projecting plinth and there are champhered sandstone surrounds to the window and door openings. Natural blue/black slates to pitched roofs, exposed rafters and cast iron rain water goods. Front elevation faces NE and the two lobbies project either side of the central stores which are surmoumted by a sandstone bellcote. Under the bellcote is a simple triangular pediment with an inscribed plaque which reads -'National School'. There appers to have been a futher inscription above but this has been removed. There is a single 2/4 sliding sash window to each lobby and smaller 1/2 similar windows to the stores. On this elevation the roofs arer half hipped and finished with scalloped bargeboards. The side elevations are similar with each classroom having three 2/4 sliding sash windows, exposed rafters and cast irom RWG's. The lobbies are entered from the side and the doors are vertical sheeting timber doors with large decorative cast iron hinges. There are steps to the doors the last two being granite. The door to the SW has a cast iron boot scraper. The rear elevation has four 2/4 sliding sash windows, 2 to each classroom, exposed rafters and cast iron RWG's. There are two adjacent tall chimney stacks in the centre serving the classrooms. The former school sites on an elevated site close to the railway station on the south side of Railway street. It shares an extyensive site with a mid twentiethy century split level house. The school is connected to Railway Street with a straight pedestrian path that terminates with a simple wrought iron hooped gate supported on one piece granite gate posts. To either side is a short length od random rubble walling and railings to match the gate. The walling has square terminal pers with granite semi-circular copings.

Architects

Historical Information

This (former) school house was built in 1855-56. It replaced an earlier one, built c.1826-28, which was located slightly further to the north closer to the street line. This previous building was constructed with the assistance of landlord Colonel Maxwell Close, the owner of Elm Park who had purchased the Moore estate of Drumbanagher, (to the south of Poyntzpass), in 1818. The school was originally under the Kildare Street Society system, applying to join the National Board in September 1846. The application made to the Education Commissioners mentions that Colonel Close was intending to build ‘two large school rooms in the spring’; however this work was not carried out until late 1855, the inspection report of April the following year noting the ‘excellent new school-house’ which had erected since the last inspection (in late summer / early autumn 1855). Work was not entirely complete at that stage, the inspection report of November 1856 noting that the ‘inscription “National School”’ was not yet up, and, internally, ‘a clock was wanted’! According to information supplied by the Poyntzpass and District Local History Society, stone work on the building was carried out by local masons Edward and Patrick McCourt, who received 3s 4d per day. The identity of the architect is not known. Colonel Close had employed William Playfair of Edinburgh to build his new mansion at Drumbanagher in the 1830s, and (possibly) also the west gate lodge to the same in 1847. He could well have asked him to work on the school at this time also, however as the building was not actually constructed for another eight years this would seem unlikely, unless of course Playfair prepared plans in 1846-47 which were later adhered to. Playfair was of considerable age by the time the school was built, and died in 1857, so it is unlikely that he oversaw any work, even if he had designed the building. A house was constructed for the schoolmaster and schoolmistress, James and Catherine Watson, in 1863. This was located to the north of the school itself. The school remained within the National system as ‘Poyntzpass No.2 National School’ (No.1 School was at the northern edge of the town) until the educational reforms of 1923, when it became a Public Elementary School. After the 1947 reforms it changed again, becoming the ‘County Primary School’. The school closed in 1972 with the pupils transferring to the larger newly-built ‘Poyntzpass (New) Primary School’ off the Tandragee Road to the north of the town. The old school premises later passed into private ownership, and the building appears to have been used as a store for tyres during the mid 1980s. The (former) schoolmaster’s house was demolished around this period also. The Poyntzpass and District Local History Society state that among the teachers to serve in the school ‘were Robert Judge, for many years President of The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation and founder of the Retired Teachers’ Association and Robert Harvey, musician, mathematician and photographer.’ References- Primary sources 1 PRONI VAL/1D/2/2 Valuation plan of Poyntzpass, c.1834-38 2 PRONI VAL/1B/214 First valuation, Ballymore parish, c.1834-38 3 ‘Ordnance Survey Memoirs, Parish of Ballymore, June 1835 [Reprinted in ‘Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland…vol.1, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB, 1990), pp.9, 11] 4 PRONI ED/1/11 p.86 Poyntzpass Male and Female School- grant aid application, 1846-47 5 PRONI SCH/512/5/1 District Inspector observations and suggestions book, Poyntzpass No.2 (female school), 1856-1908 6 PRONI SCH/512/5/2 District Inspector observations and suggestions book, Poyntzpass No.2 (male school), 1856-1908 7 PRONI VAL/2D/2/7 Valuation plan of Poyntzpass, 1859 8 PRONI SCH/512/1/1 Poyntzpass No.2 register (female), 1862-1914 9 PRONI VAL/2b/2/18A Second valuation, Ballymore parish, c.1863 [As this property was a schoolhouse and exempt from rates the valuers had little interest in the building, however they do remark upon the construction of the schoolmaster’s house.] 10 PRONI ED/1/12 p.203 Poyntzpass Male and Female School- grant aid application, Sept. 1863 11 PRONI SCH/512/1/1 Poyntzpass No.2 register (male), 1900-1951 12 PRONI VAL/12E/54/1 Valuation plan of Poyntzpass, 1904(-09) 13 PRONI OS/8/144/1 OS plan of Poyntzpass, 1906 14 PRONI VAL/12E/57/1 Valuation plan of Poyntzpass, 1908(-35) 15 PRONI SCH/512/1/1 Poyntzpass No.2 register (female), 1913-51 16 PRONI SCH/512/5/3 Inspector’s suggestion book (Poyntzpass P.E. School), 1923-52 17 PRONI VAL/3G/51/1 Valuation plan of Poyntzpass, 1937(-57) 18 PRONI Sample daily report book (Poyntzpass P.E. school), 1939-43 19 MBR HB15/06/06 First Survey report, County Primary School, May 1970 20 MBR HB/15/06/046 Slide photographs former County Primary School, 1984 Secondary sources 1 Information supplied by Poyntzpass and District Local History Society (November 2006)

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion C. Ornamentation D. Plan Form I. Quality and survival of Interior

Historic Interest

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

Evaluation

This fine, little altered, mid-Victorian National school has significant local interest and is well proportioned and detailed, with sandstone window and door surrounds and bellcote.

General Comments

**Building Preservation Notice Served 25th January 2007**

Date of Survey