Survey Data
Reg No
11904008
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Previous Name
Scoil Náisiúnta na Cloiche Móire
Original Use
School
In Use As
School
Date
1895 - 1900
Coordinates
284104, 184593
Date Recorded
30/10/2002
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached five-bay double-height national school, dated 1896. Extended, c.1960, comprising single-bay single-storey flat-roofed projecting block to rear to west. Refenestrated, c.1990. Gable-ended roof with slate. Clay ridge tiles. Roughcast chimney stacks. Timber eaves. Replacement aluminium rainwater goods, c.1960. Flat-roof to projecting block. Bitumen felt. Timber eaves. Roughcast walls. Painted. Cut-stone date stone/plaque. Square-headed openings. Stone sills (concrete to projecting block). Replacement uPVC casement windows, c.1990. Red brick piers to door opening with concrete canopy over. Replacement tongue-and-groove timber panelled door, c.1990. Set back from road in own grounds. Tarmacadam yard to site. Rubble stone boundary wall to front. Detached two-bay single-storey flat-roofed shelter, c.1960, to south with open front. Flat-roof with bitumen felt. Rendered walls. Painted. Square-headed openings with cast-concrete pier.
Appraisal
Bigstone National School is a fine late nineteenth-century block composed on a simple plan of two-classrooms flanking a central entrance bay, and with elevations of a restrained appearance that betray the economy with which the school was built. Although altered in the late twentieth century, the originally form of the school remains intact. Of social and historic interest as the earliest surviving educational facility in the area, the school retains some original features, including the slate roof.