Lylo National School, Drumnacanvy Road, Craigavon, Co Armagh, BT63 5SR

Lylo National School is a Grade B2 listed building comprising an L-shaped single-storey gabled school of 1894 joined to a simple barn-like Roman Catholic church of 1863. The ensemble sits on the south-east side of Drumnacanvy Road, with the long side of the school lying directly adjacent to the roadside.

The school is constructed in brick with a plain render finish and natural slate roof. Rainwater goods consist of extruded aluminium guttering and PVC downpipes. The north front features a blocked door opening to the right and four unevenly spaced sash windows with horizontal astragals to the left. Between the door and first window is a small plaque inscribed "Lylo National School 1894". The west and east gables of the front section are blank. Marks on the render of the west gable indicate where a boiler room was once attached, which would have given the building a T-shaped plan when standing. The south face has two sash windows with horizontal astragals; the upper astragal of the left window is missing. Small chimney stacks project from either gable. The roof ridge of this front section is approximately 1000mm lower than the rear portion.

The building comprises a main return section and a smaller gabled linking block. The east face of the main return has a double door to the right and two modern top-hung windows to the left, with a plain buttress to the far left. The south face of the main return is gabled with a chimney stack at the apex. The east face of the small linking block has modern double doors, whilst the west face has a sash-like window. The west face of the main return has three sash-like windows, all fitted with external security grills, and a plain buttress to the far right. An awkward roof junction has created an asymmetric gable to the west side of the front section. The left side of the return merges with the gable of the front section.

The church was constructed in 1863, replacing an earlier church of 1813 which stood a few metres to the north-east. The school was added in 1894, making this an unusual arrangement—National Schools, established in the 1830s to remain outside the influence of various religious denominations and symbolically prohibited from being physically attached to churches, appears from the beginning to have been linked to St John's Church. It remains unclear whether the linking block was originally part of the schoolhouse or constructed as a vestry. Following the school's construction, the church interior was reordered with the altar relocated from the south wall to the north wall. Around 1910, the then parish priest donated the present altar and surroundings. In approximately 1962, the altar railings were removed and the altar table moved forward to allow the celebrant to face the congregation. During the 1970s, damage caused by a terrorist bomb resulted in the removal of a boiler house that had stood against the west gable. The school itself closed in 1974.

The building remains little altered from its original simplicity, retaining considerable architectural and historical interest as an exceptional example of a National School physically united with a Roman Catholic church.