Survey Data

Reg No

41303160


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Architectural, Technical


Previous Name

Ulster Canal Stores


Original Use

Store/warehouse


In Use As

Sports hall/centre/gymnasium


Date

1835 - 1840


Coordinates

267107, 333312


Date Recorded

02/12/2011


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Detached eight-bay two-storey limestone-built former canal store, built c.1838. Now in use as school sports hall (McCarthy Hall), with gable-fronted entrance porch to middle of north elevation. Single-storey lean-to addition of c.1990 to same elevation. Pitched slate roof, with stone chimneystack, and cast-iron and some replacement aluminium rainwater goods. Squared rubble masonry walls with sandstone ashlar quoins and window surrounds. Square-headed window openings with block-and-start ashlar surrounds, stone sills and fixed six-pane metal-framed windows. Wider segmental-headed window opening to upper part of east gable. Square-headed door openings with block-and-start ashlar surrounds and tongue-and-groove timber battened doors. Blocked segmental-arch former vehicular openings to both long walls set into square-headed recesses and flanked by pedestrian doorways, one blocked. Building attached, via recent link, to three-bay two-storey ancillary building to north-west that appears to be former dwelling house of nineteenth-century date, having catslide porch to north-west end of front, pitched slate roof, rubble walls, and square-headed openings, ground floor windows now blocked up. South elevation of former canal store fronts onto disused Ulster Canal, adjacent to road/canal bridge at Dawson Street. Buildings are part of Saint Louis Convent complex.

Appraisal

The Ulster Canal, linking Lough Neagh to the Shannon system via Lough Erne, was built over the period 1825-1842, reaching Monaghan in 1838. Although never very successful as a transport route the canal was a major engineering undertaking with considerable socio-historical significance. This former canal store was directly associated with this undertaking, and as such is of both historical and social importance. Architecturally, fine masonry detailing and a simple, industrial aesthetic are characteristic of the era in which the stores were built and the building forms an attractive architectural grouping with the school buildings to its west.