Survey Data
Reg No
21904407
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Previous Name
Scoil Náisiúnta Naomh Íde
Original Use
School
In Use As
Crèche/pre-school
Date
1930 - 1935
Coordinates
127789, 123822
Date Recorded
22/07/2009
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached T-plan four-bay double-height former girls' national school, built in 1931, having gable-fronted two-bay projecting bay to front (north-east) and single-bay porch to rear (south-west). Now in use as a Montessori school. Pitched slate roof with rendered chimneystacks, eaves course and recent cast-iron styled aluminium rainwater goods. Lean-to corrugated-iron roof to rear porch. Rough-cast rendered walls with tooled limestone date plaque to front elevation of projecting bay. Ocular ventilation openings at plinth height. Square-headed window openings with tooled limestone sills and raised render surrounds throughout, having replacement six-over-nine pane timber sliding sash windows. Square-headed door opening with raised render surround to side (south-east) elevation of central gable-fronted projecting bay, having tooled limestone step and timber battened door. Later five-bay single-storey toilet block to south-west of school, having roughcast rendered wall linking toilet block to school. Roughcast rendered boundary walls to front having chamfered render coping, square-profile piers with chamfered render capping and double-leaf wrought-iron gates.
Appraisal
This well maintained attractive school building retains much of its historic form and character through the retention of key historic features such as a fine slate roof and sash windows. The building follows a typical early twentieth-century school design with a large central school room accessed through the front bay with a separate toilet block to the rear. The building makes a strong and positive contribution to the local architectural heritage. A rusticated cut-limestone plaque is inscribed: "Scoil Náomh [sic] Íde/Át na Fuinnseóige/Scoil Náisiúnta/ASHFORD GIRLS' N.S./A.D. 1931".