St Patrick's School, 193-195 Donegall Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT1 2FL

St Patrick's School

A detached symmetrical two-storey brick school building erected around 1830, now disused. The building is L-shaped in plan with a long north wing and shorter south wing flanking a central gabled entrance bay, facing west onto Donegall Street in Belfast. It stands adjacent to St Patrick's Church on a slightly elevated site.

The building is constructed of hand-made redbrick laid in Flemish bond above a moulded sandstone ashlar plinth course. The roofs are hipped with natural slate tiles, black clay ridge tiles, cast-iron guttering to stone eaves courses, and cast-iron downpipes.

The symmetrical front elevation displays eight window bays with a central recessed entrance bay two windows wide and topped by a curvilinear gable. The gable has sandstone coping with a flush stone base marking where a plaque formerly stood, and a sandstone frame around an iron clock face. Window and door openings are formed in gauged brick. The first-floor windows are pointed-headed with splayed sandstone sills and deep hood mouldings, containing multi-light timber windows with perpendicular tracery glazing bars; those flanking the entrance have figurative label stops. The ground-floor windows and doors are four-centred arched openings set in slightly recessed surrounds with cusped timber-framed windows and cusped overlights. The entrance doors are decorative timber with interlacing panels and metal studs, fitted with cusped tripartite overlights and opening onto two granite steps.

The north side elevation is eight windows wide with square-headed openings to the first floor containing bipartite 4/4 timber sash windows, a continuous sill course, and hood mouldings. The ground floor has pointed-headed window openings in shallow recesses with tripartite timber sash windows featuring interlacing Y-tracery.

The south wing's rear elevation is four windows wide with 2/2 timber sash windows to the first floor and a single window and door opening below. Its south elevation has four bays: the first floor contains pointed-headed windows with bipartite timber sash windows with Y-tracery heads; the ground floor has four-centred arched openings with bipartite single-pane timber sash windows also with Y-tracery heads.

A modern two-storey brick extension was constructed around 1998 abutting the rear of the north wing, with four bays detailed to match the north side elevation. The space formerly between the two original wings was filled around 1998 with a brick screen rising above the eaves, executed in contemporary style with timber doors, ceramic panels, and steel windows. A modern corridor was inserted between the wings at the same time.

The building sustained extensive fire damage around 1995 and underwent renovation thereafter. It sits street-fronted on Donegall Street with a bituminous rear parking area enclosed by replacement steel railings.