Survey Data
Reg No
11823021
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Original Use
School
In Use As
School
Date
1840 - 1880
Coordinates
278380, 184952
Date Recorded
--/--/--
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Attached three-bay single-storey rubble stone national school, c.1860, originally detached retaining early aspect with single-bay single-storey gabled projecting porch to centre. Extended, c.1980, comprising single-bay single-storey flat-roofed end bay to left (south-east). Gable-ended roof with slate (gabled to porch). Clay ridge tiles. Cut-stone chimney stacks. Timber bargeboards to gables. Cast-iron rainwater goods. Flat-roofed to end bay. Materials not visible. Irregular coursed snecked rubble granite walls. Cut-stone quoins to corners. Timber plaque to porch. Roughcast walls to end bay. Unpainted. Rendered coping. Square-headed openings. Stone sills. Red brick block-and-start surrounds. Cut-stone lintels. 2/2 timber sash windows. Timber door. Square-headed door opening to end bay. Glazed timber panelled door. Set back from road in own grounds. Gravel forecourt to front. Gateway, c.1860, to north comprising pair of cut-stone piers with cut-stone capping having timber boarded double gates and rubble stone flanking boundary wall.
Appraisal
Saint James’s School is an attractive, modest-scale range that has been well-maintained to present an early aspect to the original portion – extended in the late twentieth century, the additional range is not an attractive contribution to the original composition, lacking the fine detailing of the earliest portion. The school is of considerable social and historic interest as one of the earliest purpose-built educational facilities in the locality, and one probably sponsored by the nearby Church of Ireland church. The school retains many important early or original salient features and materials, including timber sash fenestration, timber fittings to the door opening, and a slate roof with cast-iron rainwater goods. Set back from the line of the road in its own grounds, the school is bounded by a wall of traditional construction, the locally-quarried rubble granite fabric being a feature shared with further buildings in the locality of Castledermot.