Survey Data
Reg No
40907831
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Original Use
School
In Use As
House
Date
1850 - 1860
Coordinates
217312, 393198
Date Recorded
23/01/2008
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached three-bay single-storey former national school on T-shaped plan, dated 1856, having advanced gable-fronted block to the centre of the entrance front (north). Now in use as a private house. Hipped natural slate roof to main body of building having projecting cut stone eaves course. Pitched natural slate roof to breakfront\porch having raised ashlar sandstone gable coping to the north gable end, and with stepped rendered chimneystack. Uncoursed rubble stone walls over projecting rendered rubble stone plinth course (to north elevation) and with flush bush-hammered ashlar block-and-start quoins to the corners; probably originally rendered. Cut sandstone plaque over doorway to breakfront reading ‘Drumavish National School 1856’. Square-headed window openings having flush red brick surrounds, smooth rendered reveals, cut stone sills, and with replacement windows. Central square-headed doorway to the projecting breakfront having cut stone plinth, red brick surrounds, smooth rendered reveals, and with replacement battened timber door. Set back from road in own grounds to the south-west of Killygordon, and a short distance to the north-east of Drumavish.
Appraisal
This simple but well-proportioned former national school building, of mid nineteenth-century date, retains its early form and character, despite being now in use as a dwelling. It is robustly-constructed in local rubble stone masonry, while the good-quality bush-hammered quoins to the corners, and the raised cut stone coping to the gable-fronted breakfront are of a quality not regularly encountered in small rural national schools of its date. However, the use of red brick for the surrounds to the openings suggests that this building was originally rendered. Its visual expression and integrity is enhanced by the retention of the national slate roof that adds a satisfying patina, although the loss of the original fittings to the openings detracts. The original date and name plaque over the door adds further interest. Its T-shaped plan and layout is characteristic of the great many two classroom national schools built throughout Ireland in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to standardised designs prepared by the Board of Works/Office of Public Works. However, the construction of this school at Drumavish may have been funded by a local landlord. Many small-scale national schools of this type were established throughout Ireland following the establishment of the National Educational Board in 1831. National schools of this type are a feature of the isolated rural landscapes of County Donegal, adding a layer of social history to the physical environment, and are indicative of significant local population in a period when transport was more difficult. Its form also suggests that it was originally built as a two classroom national school, possibly with separate classrooms for girls and boys, which was a common feature of many national schools built in Ireland during the nineteenth century, reflecting the strict social thinking of the time. This building is of social importance to the local area as an early surviving example of a national school where generations of local children were taught, and is an addition to the built heritage of the local area.