Survey Data
Reg No
13401918
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Previous Name
Keel School
Original Use
House
Historical Use
School master's house
Date
1810 - 1840
Coordinates
218086, 265176
Date Recorded
21/07/2005
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached five-bay two-storey former house, built c. 1830, with lean-to porch to rear elevation (north). Formerly in use as a school with attached school master’s accommodation. Two-bay single-storey outbuilding with attic storey attached to the west gable end. Now disused. Pitched natural slate roof with cut stone eaves course, rubble stone chimneystacks to gable ends (east and west) and some cast-iron rainwater goods. Roughcast render finish over roughly coursed limestone and pudding stone walls; render now failing. Square-headed window openings with tooled cut limestone sills and two-over-two pane diminishing timber sliding sash windows. Square-headed window openings to rear (north) at first floor level having paired four-over-four pane timber sliding sash windows. Central square-headed door opening to main elevation having decorative overlight with leaded tracery, and double-leaf timber panelled doors. Pitched natural slate roof and random rubble limestone and pudding stone walls to attached outbuilding to west. Two multiple-bay single-storey outbuildings to the rear on L-shaped plan, built c. 1880, having pitched natural slate roofs, random rubble limestone walls, square-headed window and door openings with stone sills, timber fittings and some with limestone voussoirs, and segmental-headed carriage arches with yellow brick voussoirs. Rubble stone gate piers (on square-plan) give access to outbuildings from road to the east. Set slightly back from road with house/former school aligned at a right-angle to the road alignment. Located to the southwest of Ardagh with modern house to front yard of house/former school (south).
Appraisal
This interesting two-storey building was formerly in use as a school with attached school master’s accommodation to the west end (probably the final two-bays). Built of locally quarried 'pudding stone' and now disused, this appealing structure retains many early and attractive features including timber sliding sash windows and a fine double leaf door with ornate overlight. The simple but attractive doorway with leaded overlight adds interest to the plain front elevation. This doorway is probably a later addition, perhaps added when the building was converted to use as a private dwelling. The form of the building suggests that it originally had two classrooms, one to the upper floor and one to the ground floor, which were probably separate classrooms for girls and boys as was common during the nineteenth century. The site of the porch to the rear may define the location of separate access to the schoolmaster's dwelling. This building was later converted to use as a farmhouse, c. 1880, and the outbuildings to the rear were built at this time. These outbuildings survive in good condition and add considerably to the setting of this building. This building is of social and historical interest as one of the earliest extant school building in the locality. This building may have been converted to a dwelling following the construction of the school house at Ballycloghan (altered, not in survey) to the northeast during the late-nineteenth century. This school was originally built and funded by the Countess Dowager of Rosse (of Newcastle House) and Mrs. Jessop (of Mountjessop) (O’Donovan Letters, c. 1835).