Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB17/06/022

Address :
Dunbar Memorial Hall Downshire Road Banbridge Co Down BT32 3JY

Townland:
Ballyvally

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Survey 2:
B2

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

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Hall

Former Use
Hall

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
220/8

IG Ref:
J1253 4611

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Owner Category

Private

Exterior Description And Setting

A double-height gabled rock-faced stone hall in Gothic-Revival style; built c.1880 and located to the south side of Downshire Road in Banbridge town centre. Rectangular plan with breakfront gabled bay to front and flanking gabled porches; side wing set perpendicular to main hall; single-storey return and flat-roof modern extensions to rear. Pitched natural slate roof with decorative terracotta ridge tiles and raised stone verges with kneeler stones and ball finials; decorative filigree finials to ridgeline and gable. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods on moulded stone eaves. Walling is regularly coursed rock-faced stone with ashlar sandstone dressings. Windows are Gothic timber casements in ashlar surrounds with projecting stone sills; ocular window to projecting gable at northeast. The principal elevation faces northeast and has projecting gabled bay to centre with ocular window having eight cusped panes and leaded lights over two tall tripartite mullioned windows with trefoil heads. Stone plaque to gable has description (illegible). Left and right bays each have paired timber casement window. The southeast elevation is abutted by the side wing to left and to re-entrant angle by a gabled porch. Porch has window to left cheek and opens to northeast with timber-sheeted door in shouldered ashlar recess, accessed via three stone steps enclosed by parapet walls. Stone shield to gable is blank. The southwest elevation is abutted to left by the single-storey return having window at northwest; abutted at right by the flat-roof modern extensions (of no interest). The northwest elevation has a tripartite mullioned window with trefoil to centre and slender loop opening to gable; abutted at left by the gabled porch, detailed as previous. The side wing to southeast has two tripartite windows and projecting chimneybreast (chimneystack removed) to centre at southeast elevation. Southeast corner is chamfered to lower level. Southwest elevation has a tall tripartite mullioned window with trefoil to centre. Setting Situated directly opposite the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church (HB17/06/003) and southwest of the Methodist Church (HB17/06/002) and the Old Technical School (HB17/06/020). To southwest are the modern District Council Offices. Set back from the road with tarmac car-parking area to front. Bounded to road by modern stone-faced wall. To entrance are two square piers with pointed caps supporting replacement metal gates. Small yard to rear. To west is a lawned garden with mature trees enclosed by the stone boundary wall. Roof: Natural slate Walling: stone Windows: Timber RWG: cast-iron

Architects

Not Known

Historical Information

The Dunbar Memorial Hall was opened on 1st May 1885 as a school house for the nearby Unitarian Church and remained in use as an educational establishment for over 65 years. The school house commemorates prominent local family, the Dunbars. Hugh Dunbar, proprietor of Gilford spinning mill, and his sisters lived at nearby Huntly House and were stalwarts of the Unitarian congregation. When Isabella Dunbar died in 1871 a considerable sum of money was left in trust for the upkeep of the Unitarian church and for the establishment of a school-house which was named the Dunbar Memorial School. The school was to be non-sectarian in character although under the control of the Unitarian minister and church committee. (Rankin; Banbridge Historical Journal) The present building is first shown on the third edition map of 1903, captioned ‘Sch[ool]’. In September 1871 the church committee advertised in the Belfast Newsletter and the Northern Whig requesting tenders for a proposed school house. Earlier in July the trustees had attempted to purchase a site from the Great Northern Railway Company on the eastern side of the Methodist Church, but the plans fell through and were not taken up again for 12 years. On 30th May 1883 a small area measuring 8 perches was purchased from the Great Northern Railway Company and in September an additional area of 32 perches. An old mill race ran through the site and had to be culverted before building could begin. A third plot was purchased from Mrs A Greer in January 1887 giving a complete frontage to the Downshire Road. (Banbridge Historical Journal) The Committee of the Unitarian Church Banbridge advertised for a school master ‘competent to instruct pupils under the Intermediate system’ in February 1885 and the school opened on 1st May of that year. (Belfast Newsletter) ‘Dunbar Memorial School House’ enters valuation records in 1885, at £25 and is drawn onto the associated valuation town plan as an L-shaped structure with protruding porch entrances for girls and boys. Visual inspection and map evidence indicates that the block to the east of the main building is a later addition and was present by 1907. However, as the school was exempted from the levy of rates, the increase in the building’s size was not recorded by valuators. The school remained a national and then public elementary school until the opening of its replacement, the new Abercorn Primary School in 1932, following education reforms which began to see Northern Ireland’s Victorian school infrastructure as cramped and unhealthy. (Crowe) The building was then taken over by Banbridge Academy for use as their preparatory department and is listed in the First General Revaluation (1933/4) as the joint property of the Trustees of Banbridge Academy and Banbridge Unitarian Church and revalued at £30, later reduced to £20. The associated plan of the school and outbuildings shows that the main building was used as classrooms and to the rear were external lavatories, a boiler house and coke store. The main classroom had a capacity for 60 pupils and a smaller classroom for 30. Valuer’s notes state that the school had use of the premises from 9am to 3 pm and the Unitarian Church had use of it at all other times. At the time of the revaluation 1933/4 there were 25 scholars at the school paying fees of £2.5s per quarter. The school had both electric light and central heating. According to Crowe, headmaster of the Academy at the time, the use of the Dunbar building was criticised as it was not considered good enough for the rank and file but was good enough for those who were sending their children to a fee-paying school. “The building was, I suppose, a museum piece. Gothic in character it was lit by a dim religious light which filtered through coloured leaded windows. And there was a gallery in the smaller of the two rooms. Here rising from a ground-floor space where the teacher was seated was a series of steps presumably to enable the teacher to keep an eye on all pupils no matter how small their stature. Unfortunately we were responsible for the removal of both the dim religious light and the gallery as they were unsuited to our purpose”. (Haughton Crowe) After the war in 1947, two temporary structures (now gone) were erected in front of the school and the preparatory school was moved into one of these while the other was used as an art room. The present building was converted into a dining room, kitchen and library for the Academy which was, at the time, housed in the Technical School building opposite. However, the present building continued to serve as the school dining room for some time after the Academy had moved to Edenderry House in 1950. This entailed a long walk for the students at lunchtimes and eventually three wartime Nissen huts on the Edenderry site were converted as the school dining hall, before a permanent structure was built in 1957. After Banbridge Academy had vacated the present building, it reverted to the Unitarian church as their church hall and in recent years has been used as a nursery school. (Haughton Crowe) The building is currently vacant. 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/6/3/27/3 Third Edition OS Map 1903 4. PRONI OS/6/3/27/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1903-18 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/6 First General Revaluation (1934-57) 9. Belfast Newsletter 10th February 1885 Secondary Sources 1. Banbridge and District Historial Society Journal 2. Linn, Captain R “A History of Banbridge” (edited by W S Kerr) Banbridge Chronicle Press, 1935 3. Haughton Crowe, W “In Banbridge Town” Banbridge Chronicle, 1964 4. Rankin, K “The Linen Houses of the Bann Valley, The story of their families” Belfast, Ulster Historical Foundation, 2007

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion C. Ornamentation D. Plan Form

Historic Interest

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

Evaluation

Dunbar Memorial Hall is a double-height gabled rock-faced stone hall in Gothic-Revival style; built c.1880. Retaining much of its original character, detailing is typically Victorian Gothic in style and is largely intact. Representing the ongoing development of Banbridge town centre during the latter part of the nineteenth-century, the hall is one of several noteworthy buildings which characterize the Downshire Road here. It is a good example of Gothic-Revival architecture.

General Comments

Date of Survey

22 February 2012