Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB17/06/020

Address :
Old Technical School Downshire Road Banbridge Co Down BT32 3JY

Townland:
Tullyear

---

Survey 2:
B1

Date of Listing:
23/02/1978 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Office

Former Use
School

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

---

OS Map No:
220/8

IG Ref:
J1261 4611

---

Owner Category

Local Govt

Exterior Description And Setting

An Edwardian two-storey three-bay former technical school in red-brick with decorative half-timbered gables; built c.1900 to designs by Henry Hobart and extended c.1910. Located to the north side of Downshire Road, near the junction with Bridge Street. Rectangular plan with projecting entrance porch to south, single-storey lean-to extensions to north and west and two-storey annexe (1910) to east. Pitched natural slate roof with decorative terracotta ridge crestings and finials, red-brick chimneystack and decorative half-timbered gables. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on exposed rafter tails. Walling is Flemish-bonded red-brick with decorative string course to first floor. Windows are tripartite timber-framed casements with leaded-and-stained glass panels to upper section. The principal elevation faces south and is symmetrically arranged with three evenly-spaced windows to first floor. Projecting porch to ground floor centre surmounted by a corniced balustrade with carved urns and terracotta panels; Y-tracery timber window to left and right cheek with coloured glass panels. Tudor-arched entrance is flanked by brick pilasters with terracotta capitals; original half-panelled timber door with stained-glass panels flanked by sidelights and surmounted by transom light; accessed by cast-iron gates. The west elevation has a timber casement window to ground floor left. The north elevation has full-height extension to centre with modern single-storey lean-to extension at basement level to north and west. East elevation of wing has irregularly arranged fenestration and a four-panelled timber door with transom light to ground floor left. The east elevation is abutted by the two-storey annexe. Annexe comprises a gabled two-storey block connected to the original building by a double-height stair-bay. South elevation is two windows wide at each floor; stair-bay at left has a double-leaf modern timber door surmounted by a transom light and hood mould and a paired timber casement window to exposed west section. The east elevation has two half-timbered gabled windows to first floor and two windows to ground floor. Setting Situated close to the junction of Bridge Street and Downshire Road, opposite the former Northern Bank (HB17/06/021) and beside the Methodist Church (HB17/06/002) and the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church (HB17/06/003). Directly to north is the River Bann. Set back from the street with original red-brick boundary plinth wall topped by sandstone coping and decorative wrought iron railings; red-brick gate piers have chamfered shafts and corniced sandstone caps. Roof: Natural slate Walling: Flemish-bonded red-brick Windows: Timber-framed casements RWG: Cast-iron

Architects

Hobart, Henry W E and Larmor, W W (annexe)

Historical Information

The building which has become latterly known as the ‘Old Technical School’ was originally built in 1902 as a Free Library and Technical School largely paid for by a grant from the Carnegie Trust. The architect was Henry W E Hobart, designer of the Carnegie Library in Lurgan at around the same time. In later years the library also became home to the Banbridge Academy, before the Academy moved to Edenderry House in 1950. The building was extended very soon after it was first built and is first shown, in this extended form, on the fourth edition OS map of 1903-18, captioned ‘Lib[rar]y’. (www.dia.ie) Between 1897 and 1913 wealthy industrialist Andrew Carnegie promised over £170,000 to pay for the building of about 80 libraries in Ireland. Not all were built, some have been destroyed and sixty-two survive (eight in Northern Ireland). (Grimes) Instrumental in initiating the idea of a Technical School in Banbridge was W J D Walker of Glenbanna House who was connected with the Congested Districts Board and urged prominent townsmen to adopt the Technical Instruction Acts of 1899 and 1901. (Linn; Banbridge Household Almanac) In March 1899 a committee of working men in the Banbridge area wrote to Andrew Carnegie requesting a grant. The letter pointed out that as almost all working people left school at 11 or 12 to work in the mills, a library was the only method open to them to continue their education. Carnegie promised a grant of £1,000 in June 1900 and this was paid in April 1901.(Grimes) A further £1,400 was raised by local subscription, and many working people were subscribers, their names being picked out on the subscription list in red ink. (Linn) Carnegie’s requirements, as elsewhere, were for the town to adopt the Libraries Act and for a free site to be provided. The Public Libraries (Ireland) Amendment Act 1877 and its 1855 predecessor were strongly opposed by some in Ireland, particularly clergy and ratepayers who were required to pay a rate for the libraries’ upkeep. Carnegie’s influence in encouraging acceptance of the Act and his financial support for free libraries were a significant boost for the public library movement in Ireland. (Grimes) Banbridge Urban District Council were the donors of the site, having purchased it from the Trustees of the nearby First Presbyterian Church for £165 and the architect was Henry Hobart. The accommodation comprised, on the ground floor, a technical classroom, reading room, ante-room, cloakroom and vestibule. On the first floor were the library and librarian’s room. The facade was of red brick and terracotta from the Lagan Vale Brickworks. (Grimes) The original building was T-shaped on plan with a double-height front section and a single-storey classroom to the rear. The building was opened in September 1902 and Carnegie was invited to the ceremony but it appears that he was displeased that the library had been combined with a school and would not contribute a further £1,600 which he was asked for. As soon as the building was opened the three rooms on the ground floor were let by the library committee to the technical instruction committee and it was only the first floor which was used for library purposes. (Grimes) There were very few pupils when the building initially opened and the venture was felt to be so uncertain that provision was made in the deeds to the turn the building into a public baths if the school did not succeed. However, this proved unnecessary and the school had 417 evening pupils by 1925. The library building also housed the museum of the Literary Society in the downstairs hallway. This had been moved to the building from the courthouse, and was later broken up and the exhibits shared amongst local schools. Exhibits included bog butter, specimens of shore life, pearl shell from the Bann, small Egyptian figurines, a New Zealand war club, punch jugs donated by the Reading Society, alligator heads and jars of snakes and reptiles. (Banbridge Chronicle) The ‘Free Library’ first enters valuation records in 1903 valued at £11. The library was built on a site owned by the Unitarian Church and replaced a former shed and yard. ‘Technical Institute’ is not added to the description until 1905 when the valuation is increased to £62. Associated valuer’s notes record that the cost of construction was £1370. A plan and dimensions are given showing a T-shaped building with rooms on the first floor used by the library. The porches to the front and rear are roofed in lead but otherwise the library is of brick and slate. The valuation is divided into a library which is £8 and exempt and the Technical School valued at £4 and not exempt. The current building was the first technical school in Banbridge and was established in order to train children who were already employed in industry. Up to this time technical education had been in the form of so-called Pioneer Lectures carried out by peripatetic teachers. (Linn) The first secretary of the school was W J McCaghey who later became chief Inspector of Factories. He was followed by Brice Moore who was appointed Principal and Secretary in 1902 but resigned in 1907 when he was appointed headmaster of Banbridge Academy. His successor was W R Johnston and in 1910 an annexe for technical education was built and presented by N D and TS Ferguson as a memorial to their parents. (Linn) The annexe was designed by William Wright Larmor, engineer to Banbridge Council and Assistant County Surveyor for County Down. (www.dia.ie) In 1918 Mr Johnston left for Coleraine Technical School and was succeeded by OS Spokes. (Linn) Two schools combined in 1915 to form Banbridge Academy – Banbridge Academical Institution which had been based at Bannside Hall and the Excelsior School whose classes were held in the Temperance Hall. The two heads, W J Warren and Brice Moore were to act as joint principals and the new school was conducted in the Bannside Hall and in the Technical School building. It was a fee-paying school with preparatory, pre-junior and post-junior departments with specialist teachers for maths, languages, classics and English and a former sergeant from the RIC who drilled the pupils. A new Board of Governors was set up under N D Ferguson. The school had three houses, Bann, Iveagh and Mourne corresponding to those who came from the town, the Barony or the Kingdom. (Crowe) In April 1921 a flat-roofed workshop was added to the site of the current building (still present). (Banbridge Household Almanac) In 1926 Banbridge Academy was transferred to Down Regional Education Committee and soon afterwards an extensive building scheme was launched, doubling the building in size, including raising the rear extension, so that the buildings could house both the Technical School and Banbridge Academy. (Crowe) After extension the new building was re-opened by Viscount Bangor, Chairman of the Down Regional Education Committee in August 1928. The Technical School had become a great source of pride to the town and was thought ’one of the finest provincial institutions of its kind in Ulster’. The availability of technical education had changed the structure of society - ‘many who today occupy responsible positions would have been ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water’’. (Banbridge Household Almanac 1928) There are no alterations to valuation records until the First General Revaluation of 1933/4 when the building is valued in three separate portions as Banbridge Academy, Technical School and Carnegie Library. An associated plan shows the extended building with the library contained on the first floor of the main building and the separate workshop which had been built in 1921. Accommodation comprised, on the ground floor, an assembly room, two class rooms, two cloak rooms, on the first floor two class rooms, two kitchens (domestic science) and an office room adjoining the library. On the top floor were a science lab and a further class room. There was hot water heating and electric light throughout. Banbridge Academy was almost at capacity at this time with 137 out of 140 places filled. The Academy paid a rent of £90 per year for the use of the buildings and obtained an income in fees from pupils ranging from £10 per annum for pupils under 12 to £16 for pupils over 14. The school building was jointly occupied by Banbridge Academy who made use of the school between 9am and 4pm and the Technical School who used it after 4 pm. The number on the roll of the Technical School was 728. The Principal of the Technical School had a room in the building reserved for his own use which was separately valued at £52 and the Carnegie Library, comprising a library and reading room, was valued at £20. The school buildings were valued at £73. However, during the next few decades, all three tenants vacated the building. Banbridge Academy joined the public education system in 1937/8, and when Edenderry House came on the market in 1947 the Academy immediately decided to buy it. The head of the Technical School, John McWhirter, began a day school in the current building forcing the Academy to leave. Edenderry House was not yet ready but the Academy had to move abruptly and the official opening of the new school took place on September 24th 1951. (Crowe) A new Technical School opened on the Castlewellan Road in 1963 and was thought a vast improvement on the ‘old and inadequate’ building in Downshire Road. The new building is still in use as a Further Education College. (Banbridge Chronicle) The Carnegie library, formerly the responsibility of the urban council, was taken over by the Southern Board in 1973 but the accommodation in Downshire Road was thought too cramped to cope with the growth in use of the library and there were no proper facilities for staff. The library committee of the time resisted the idea of a new library, which they anticipated to be a ‘greenhouse’, and argued that the old building was worth retaining for its character alone. A new library was opened in Scarva Street in 1979 at a cost of £140,000. (Mourne Observer; Banbridge Chronicle) The current building was listed in 1978 and became a pensioner’s club. The first survey photograph shows several ornamental ventilation lanterns along the roofline which have since been removed. Various repairs and renovations have taken place over the years including replacement of windows, roof, rainwater goods, brick retaining wall and railings, much of this work under the supervision of M H Ferguson, architect. In 2006 a complete refurbishment took place in which disability access was improved by the installation of lifts. (HB file) References: Primary Sources 1. PRONI OS/6/3/27/1 First Edition OS Map 1833 2. PRONI OS/6/3/27/2 Second Edition OS map 1860 3. PRONI OS/6/3/27/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1903-18 4. PRONI VAL/12/A/3/12 Valuer’s Notebook (1905) 5. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/7A-C Annual Revisions (1899-1930) 6. PRONI VAL/12/F/4/1/1 Annual Revisions (1930-35) 7. PRONI VAL/3/C/4/4 First General Revaluation (1936-57) 8. PRONI VAL/3/D/4/2/A/10 First General Revaluation (1933-57) 9. Banbridge Household Almanac 1928 10. Mourne Observer 21st February 1980 11. Banbridge Chronicle 6th December 1974 12. Banbridge Chronicle 8th November 1979 13. Banbridge Chronicle 14th December 1962 14. Banbridge Chronicle Friday January 11th 1963 15. NIEA HB file Secondary Sources 1. Linn, Captain R “A History of Banbridge” (edited by W S Kerr) Banbridge Chronicle Press, 1935 2. Crowe, W H “In Banbridge Town” Banbridge Chronicle, 1964 3. Grimes, B “Irish Carnegie Libraries” Irish Academic Press, 1998 4. www.dia.ie

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion C. Ornamentation D. Plan Form H-. Alterations detracting from building I. Quality and survival of Interior J. Setting

Historic Interest

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

Evaluation

An Edwardian two-storey three-bay former technical school in red-brick with decorative half-timbered gables; built c.1900 to designs by Henry Hobart and extended c.1910. Symmetrically arranged about a projecting porch with the later addition to east. Displaying proportions and detailing typical of the Edwardian style, of good quality and largely intact. Although the interior has been altered, much fabric and detailing survive, including the original library. A good example of the work of a prominent local architect and part of a noteworthy group with the former Northern Bank (HB17/06/021), the Methodist Church (HB17/06/002) and the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church (HB17/06/003).

General Comments

Date of Survey

17 January 2012