Survey Data
Reg No
11901303
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Previous Name
Scoil Muire Náisiúnta
Original Use
School
In Use As
School
Date
1925 - 1930
Coordinates
275805, 226543
Date Recorded
14/10/2002
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached five-bay double-height national school, dated 1929, originally on a H-shaped plan comprising single-bay double-height recessed entrance bay to centre with two-bay double-height gabled projecting flanking end bays. Extended, 1957, comprising eight-bay single-storey flat-roofed parallel range along rear elevation to north (forming recessed end bay to west). Extensively renovated, c.1990. Gable-ended (gable-fronted) roofs. Replacement fibre-cement slate, c.1990. Concrete ridge tiles. Red brick chimney stacks. Timber eaves and bargeboards. Cast-iron rainwater goods. Flat-roofed to parallel range to north. Bitumen felt. Nap rendered walls (roughcast to parallel range). Painted. Square-headed window openings. Concrete sills. Replacement multi-pane timber casement windows, c.1990. Square-headed door opening. Replacement glazed timber panelled door, c.1990. Set back from road in own grounds. Tarmacadam yard to site. Cast-concrete block boundary wall to circumference of site.
Appraisal
Scoil Muire National School is a fine example of an early Board of Works design for the Board of Education. Designed on a simple H-shaped plan the front (south) elevation is composed of graceful proportions and indicates the internal arrangement on the outside (the two projecting bays representing a classroom each inside). The school has been much altered in recent years, including the replacement of most of its original materials, yet is of social and historic interest as the earliest surviving educational facility in the locality. The school also represent early twentieth-century attempts to improve the standard of education of the rural population throughout the country. The school forms an attractive group with the later school (11901302/KD-13-02) and Catholic church (11901301/KD-13-01) nearby, and forms the core of Allenwood village.