Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB26/50/077 C

Address :
St Patrick's School 193-195 Donegall Street Belfast County Antrim BT1 2FL

Townland:
Town Parks

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Survey 2:
B1

Date of Listing:
26/06/1979 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Shop

Former Use
School

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
130-13 NE

IG Ref:
J3372 7494

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Owner Category

Charity

Exterior Description And Setting

Detached symmetrical multi-bay two-storey brick former school, built c.1830, comprising a long north wing and a shorter south wing flanking a central gabled entrance bay. L-shaped on plan, facing west and located on the east side of Donegall Street adjacent to St. Patrick’s Church (HB26/50/077A). Extensively damaged by fire c.1995, and subsequently renovated with a modern corridor inserted between both wings, c.1998. Hipped natural slate roofs with black clay ridge tiles and cast-iron guttering to stone eaves course and cast-iron downpipes. Hand-made redbrick walling laid in Flemish bond with moulded sandstone ashlar plinth course. Pointed, four-centred and square-headed window openings formed in gauged brick with sandstone sills and replacement multi-pane timber windows with timber tracery (unless otherwise stated). Symmetrical front elevation is eight windows wide with a central recessed entrance bay, two windows wide and surmounted by a curvilinear gable. Sandstone coping to the central gable with a flush stone base of a former plaque and a sandstone frame to iron clock face. Pointed-headed window openings to the first floor with splayed sandstone sills, deep hood mouldings and multi-light timber windows with perpendicular tracery glazing bars, those to the entrance bay having figurative label stops. Four-centred arched window and door openings to the ground floor, set in slightly recessed openings having cusped timber framed windows with cusped overlights. Decorative timber doors with interlacing panels and metal studs having a cusped tripartite overlight and opening onto two granite steps. North side elevation is eight windows wide with square-headed window openings to the first floor having hood mouldings, a continuous sill course and bipartite 4/4 timber sash windows. Pointed-headed window openings to the ground floor set in shallow recesses with tripartite timber sash windows and interlacing Y-tracery. The rear elevation to the north wing is abutted by a modern two-storey brick extension, built c.1998, with four bays to the south side elevation, detailed as per north side elevation. The former space between both wings is now filled with a brick screen rising above the eaves and built in a contrasting contemporary style with timber doors, ceramic panels and steel windows. The rear elevation to the south wing is four windows wide with 2/2 timber sash windows to the first floor and a single window and door opening to the ground floor. The south elevation to the south wing is four windows wide with pointed-headed window openings to the first floor having bipartite timber sash windows with Y-tracery heads. Four-centred-arched-headed window openings to the ground floor having bipartite single-pane timber sash windows with Y-tracery heads. Setting Located on the east side of Donegall Street on a slightly elevated site adjacent to the south elevation of St. Patrick’s Church (HB26/50/077A). Street-fronted with bitmac finished rear parking area enclosed by replacement steel railings. Roof: Natural slate RWG : Cast-iron Walling: brick Windows: timber

Architects

Not Known

Historical Information

Dating from 1828-33, St Patrick’s School is the earliest surviving Gothic revival building in Belfast and was broadly contemporary with the neighbouring St Patrick’s chapel (the present church is a replacement). No architect is recorded but Larmour suggests that the school may be the work of Thomas Duff, who was working in the gothic style for ecclesiastical clients at this period. (Larmour) A school was established in the newly-built St Patrick’s chapel in the 1820s, with the aim of providing a Catholic education for the poorer children of the parish. On 24th July 1828 the foundation stone of a new school house was laid by Bishop Crolly. The school was opened the following year and classes were held from ten o’clock in the morning until three in the afternoon during the week and from ten to twelve on Saturdays. The school catered for 480 males and 380 females in summer and about 50 less of each in winter when the cold school room may have been unappealing. The building consisted of two rooms, ninety feet long, thirty feet wide and eighteen feet high. Some of the scholars paid a penny per week but most of the children were of the poorest class and their education was provided free of charge. (Heatley) The style of teaching was Lancasterian – large open schoolrooms were supervised by the schoolmaster and children would be seated facing him on long forms, ranked according to their standard of work. Wide aisles down the sides were used by small groups having supervised reading lessons, the more able pupils providing the supervision. (Perspective) The school joined the National School system in 1832, the first in Belfast to do so, and was supplied with books and requisites by the Board, who also granted £70 towards the male and female teachers. In 1833 the Diocesan Seminary was built as the south wing of the present school, the boarders residing at the ‘Vicinage’ in the Crumlin Road, which was later to become St Malachy’s College. Donegall National School is listed in the Townland Valuation (1828-40) at £46.14s.4d and a plan is given showing the building occupying much the same form as today. Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) values the national school house and yards at £75 and the adjoining Diocesan Seminary at £36. The school began to offer evening classes to older children who had to work during the day in the 1840s. By 1860 the school operated between 7 and 9 at night and each pupil paid 2½ pence per week . The children were employed during the day as artisans, clerks, butchers and millworkers. Evening classes for girls, mainly mill-workers, began in the mid-1860s. (Heatley) In 1866 four Christian Brothers arrived in Belfast and an extension was made to St Malachy’s College in Crumlin Road to house them. The same year they took over four classrooms in the Donegall Street school and this section was then retitled ‘St Patrick’s Christian Brothers School’ while the rooms to the south, the former St Malachy’s Diocesan Seminary, became St Patrick’s National School. No state aid was granted to the Christian Brothers school, unlike the National School, and funds were raised from an annual charity sermon and from house to house collections. An Infants’ School was established on the site on March 30th 1885. By 1900 the Christian Brothers school was valued at £200 and the national schools at £160 suggesting that improvements or additions had been made since Griffith’s Valuation of 1856-64. The Queen Anne revival gable above the clock on the front elevation is likely to be a later addition, as this was not a style that was favoured by the late Georgians. A cartouche attached to the gable has lost its inscription which used to read ‘Erected by the R Rev Bishop Crolly MDCCCXXXIII’ (1833). (Perspective) The national school in Donegall Street was closed by the mid-1960s, the Christian Brothers school surviving for a few years longer. The building, in occasional use as a church hall, fell into disrepair during the 1970s and 80s (Street Directories; Perspective). In 1995 the building was badly damaged by a fire which spread to the neighbouring church and was subsequently taken over by the Belfast Buildings Preservation Trust which secured funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, Urban Development Grants and the Environment and Heritage Service. Renovations, supervised by Consarc, began in 1998. The northern wing of the building was extensively damaged in the fire, the roof and first floor had collapsed, leaving only the cast iron columns standing. The renovation was specifically tailored towards the new tenants, the Catholic Council for Maintained Schools and the Diocesan Resource Centre bookshop, which occupy the northern wing. The southern wing of the building houses a restored classroom on the ground floor and a meeting room on the first floor. The linkage between the two schools has been rebuilt behind the entrance façade in a contemporary style. The windows were restored using crown glass in the elevations facing Donegall Street and Donegall Lane and brick repairs were made using salvaged brick. A match for the original Dungannon sandstone was found in Darney quarry in the north east of England. A First Trust ‘Better Ireland’ award was garnered by the scheme for its integration of ceramic panels with a celtic theme in the entryway. (Perspective) Brett judges the school ‘a very fine exercise in Georgian Tudor’, giving ‘a sudden breath of Hampton Court’ when glimpsed above the high walls that once surrounded it. (Brett) References: Primary Sources 1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/1 – First Edition OS Map 1832-3 2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1858 3. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1901-2 4. PRONI OS/6/1/61/6 – Sixth Edition OS Map 1931 5. PRONI VAL/1/B/710A Townland Valuation (1828-40) 6. PRONI VAL/2/B/7/3AGriffith’s Valuation (1856-64) 7. PRONI VAL/7/B/9/14 – Belfast Revaluation 1900 8. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/C/1-45 Annual Revisions (1863-1930) 9. Perspective Vol 7 Iss 4 Mar/Apr 1999 p20-4 Secondary Sources 1. Brett, C.E.B. “Buildings of Belfast 1700-1914” Belfast: Friar’s Bush Press, revised edition 1985 2. Heatley, F “The Story of St Patrick’s Belfast, 1815-1977” 3. Larmour, P “Belfast, An Illustrated Architectural Guide” Belfast: Friar’s Bush Press, 1987 4. Patton, M “Central Belfast: An Historical Gazetteer” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

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

Historic Interest

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

Evaluation

Detached symmetrical multi-bay two-storey brick former school, built c.1830, comprising a long north wing and a shorter south wing flanking a central gabled entrance bay. L-shaped on plan and located adjacent to St. Patrick’s Church (HB26/50/077A) and the associated Parochial House and terrace farther north. Reputedly the earliest surviving Gothic Revival building in Belfast, this was also the first National School in Belfast. Although extensively damaged by fire resulting in the loss of much original fabric internally, the plan form survives and significant historic detailing externally. The school is a good example of the type and represents the development of education in Belfast and in association with the Catholic Church, as well as the ongoing development of the site from the early 19th century.

General Comments

Renumbered from HB26/50/076 to HB26/50/077C

Date of Survey

19 October 2012