Ballynure Primary School, 2 Lismenary Road, Ballynure, Co Antrim, BT39 9UF

Ballynure Primary School is a detached multi-bay single-storey primary school constructed in 1930, located between Church Road and Lismenary Road in the townland of Toberdowney. The building represents an early example of innovative school design that was central to mid-century educational reform, built following the 1923 Education Act which transferred schools to local education authority control and sparked significant growth in school building.

The school has a loose U-shaped plan arranged around a central corridor. The main composition consists of a south-facing classroom block flanked by symmetrical lower flat-roofed porches. To the north-east, a series of flat-roofed offices abut this main block. To the north-west, a taller hall block with pitched roof and a lower canteen block with pitched roof are connected by a flat-roofed storage block. The hall block is abutted at its east by a corridor and a hipped-roof classroom block at its centre, and at its north-west. Roofs are hipped and naturally slated to the main and central classroom blocks; hipped and artificially slated to the north classroom block; pitched and artificially slated to the hall and canteen block. A rendered chimney serves the main classroom block, with brick chimneys elsewhere. Walls are roughcast over a painted plinth.

The principal elevation faces south and is three bays wide and symmetrical. The central bay contains three windows within round-arched-headed openings on a masonry sill course, with the central opening containing original signage reading 'Public Elementary School 1930 Ballynure', surmounted by a shallow gabled parapet. The outer bays each contain three windows over masonry sill courses. Porches at left and right each contain a single window in a round-arched-headed opening.

The west elevation of the main classroom block is abutted by a flat-roofed entrance porch containing a central projecting three-order rebated square-headed opening with recent double-leaf entrance doors, surmounted by original signage; a square-headed uPVC window in a round-arched-headed opening to the right and a rectangular uPVC window to the left. Abutting to the left is the hall comprising four bays separated by roughcast piers, with a pair of metal casement windows at two central bays. Further abutting to the left is the canteen block containing square-headed double-leaf entrance doors with a transom light to the left and two metal casement windows to the right.

The north elevation comprises the north classroom block to the left with two bays, each containing five windows (uPVC to the left, metal casements to the right), and the canteen gable-end to the right containing three metal casement windows. An exposed section of the hall contains recent double-leaf doors.

The east elevation comprises, to the left, the porch block, abutted to the right by a flat-roofed office block containing two metal casement windows. The east elevation of the central classroom block has five bays, each containing a uPVC window, with a square-headed door to the left bay, and is abutted to the left by a flat-roofed corridor. To the right, the north classroom block is blank, abutted to the left by a flat-roofed corridor and the main entrance comprising modern timber double-leaf doors with side-lights and transom light, beneath a cast concrete canopy.

The school retains some original features both internally and externally, including original metal casement windows to the hall and north classroom block. However, the building has been compromised by various alterations and additions, including replacement square-headed uPVC casement windows throughout much of the building. While of local interest, it is not among the best examples of this building type.

The school is set within grounds containing a playground, mobile classroom, and a flat-roofed brick shelter to the south. The site is bounded along Church Road by wire fencing, accessed through modern gates supported on brick pillars. A car park and mature garden lie to the north, bounded to Lismenary Road by wire fencing and accessed through a pair of gates at the north-east and north-west, each supported on brick pillars.

The present village primary school replaced an earlier national school built in 1856. The school does not appear on the 1832 or 1857 Ordnance Survey maps, though it is recorded by the 1902 map. James Boyle's Ordnance Survey Memoirs from 1840 describes the people of Ballynure as 'anxious to have their children instructed, but only to a certain extent', noting that while numerous schoolhouses had been erected by local subscription, these were primarily for convenience rather than educational quality, and instruction rarely extended beyond reading, writing, arithmetic, and perhaps a little grammar.