Survey Data
Reg No
41401503
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Social
Previous Name
McKelvey's Grove National School
Original Use
School
Date
1780 - 1850
Coordinates
284555, 326571
Date Recorded
01/04/2012
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached four-bay single-storey Church of Ireland church, built c.1840, with gabled porch to east and two-bay two-storey return to south, latter formerly minister's house, with recent lean-to roofed outbuilding attached. Building now disused. Hipped slate roof with clay ridge tiles, having pitched slate roof and cast-iron octagonal hopper and downpipe to house. Red brick chimneystacks to house, rendered to north, with simple terracotta chimney pots. Roughcast rendered walls, with some red brick laid in English garden wall bond visible to porch, and with rowlock brick eaves course throughout, rendered and painted in places. Square-headed window openings to long walls of church, with double-leaf cast-iron lattice casement windows, having rendered and painted brick sills. Pointed-arch window openings with timber-framed tracery windows to east and west ends, having decorative coloured square panes, bordered by rectangular coloured panes. Original cast-iron frames to house, having pivot awning over fixed pane in eight-over-twelve arrangement. Outbuildings to rear having corrugated-iron roofs, smooth rendered walls, and square-headed openings with recent fittings. Rendered boundary wall to front with square-plan gate piers and wrought-iron vehicular and pedestrian gates.
Appraisal
The unusual combination of a Church of Ireland church with a minister's house to its rear, and the outbuildings to the rear, make this an interesting part of County Monaghan's architectural heritage. The cast-iron lattice and decorative stained-glass windows are of interest and contribute to the aesthetic of this site. A school house is named on the site on the first edition Ordnance Survey map c.1835, and Drollagh Church with its return is shown in the second edition map c.1908. It is possible that this building incorporates the earlier school house into its structure, a not uncommon practice in this area. As a former school house and Church of Ireland church, this site is of social significance, serving this rural community, and forming an interesting group of ecclesiastical buildings with McKelvey’s Grove Church to the east, which had its own attached school-house. The complex highlights the historic connection between religious and secular education and stands as a fitting reminder of changes in political and religious relations in modern Ireland.