Drumraymond Community Hall, (Formerly Gortgill National Schools), 47A Roguery Road, Toomebridge, Co. Antrim, BT41 3TJ

Drumraymond Community Hall (formerly Gortgill National Schools)

A detached single-hall rendered schoolhouse dated 1902, located east of Roguery Road in Toomebridge, facing west. The building is of modest scale and good proportions, retaining many original features both internally and externally. It is of social significance to the rural community and represents an increasingly rare example of its type.

The schoolhouse is L-plan with central coupled porches and a return to the rear, augmented by a modern extension to the internal angle dating from around 1970 of no architectural interest. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with red clay roll-top ridge tiles. The walling is painted block-marked render over a chamfered smooth-rendered plinth, detailed with concave moulded cornices.

Windows are square-headed with stone cills, stop-ended moulded reveals and shallow segmental heads. Those on the front elevation have metal grilles; the remainder are blocked up. The principal west elevation features paired gabled porches at centre, each with a door opening—timber single panel to the left, sheeted to the right. A bracketed masonry name plaque is inscribed "Gorthill / National Schools / 1902" with the word "National" subsequently chiselled out. Two windows flank the porch on either side.

The north gable is blank and abutted by a small outbuilding detailed as the main block with a central blocked-up window to its gable. The exposed schoolhouse gable is blank. The rear east elevation has a return to the left; the remainder is abutted by the extension, which has a lean-to roof and small high-level modern top-hung windows. The return gable is abutted by a central full-height blockwork extension. The south elevation gable has two higher windows; the return elevation has three windows of the same type, all blocked up.

Windows throughout are timber casements with half-round cast-iron rainwater goods. Doors are timber sheeted.

The building is set close to the road in a gravelled plot, accessed from the road through modern gates, bound to the roadside by a timber fence and to the rear by hedges.

The schoolhouse originally contained three classrooms, each with its own entrance. The return was used for infants and had a dividing screen. Younger children were taught on the right side of the main hall and older children to the left, with classes divided by a retractable screen. The building was converted to use as a community hall around 1975 and was purchased outright from the school trustees around 1995. Attendance records held at PRONI document use from 1904 to 1954. A memorial plaque to the victims of the Great Famine was erected in the grounds during the 1970s but has since been removed.