Harding Memorial Primary School, 105 Cregagh Road, Belfast, County Antrim, BT6 8PZ

Harding Memorial Primary School is a symmetrical, detached, multi-bay, two-storey redbrick school building on the west side of Cregagh Road, Belfast, built around 1913 to the designs of architect William John Fennell. It was extended between 1929 and 1932 to designs by Reginald Sharman Wilshere. The building is quadrangular on plan with a central courtyard and faces east. It shares group value with the small Parish Hall immediately to the north of the site. It is an impressive early 20th-century school that retains much of its original character and detailing, and holds social importance for the local community.

Architectural Character and Exterior

The roofs are pitched and hipped, covered in natural slate with roll-moulded terracotta ridge tiles, ogee-moulded cast-iron guttering supported on shaped rafter feet, and cast-iron downpipes. Plain timber bargeboards finish the two front gables, each of which is filled with applied timber framing. The walls are redbrick laid in English garden wall bond, with a projecting redbrick plinth course trimmed with moulded terracotta. Window openings are generally segmental-headed brick arches with moulded brick surrounds, fitted with original multi-pane timber sash windows and top-hung overlights.

Front (East) Elevation

The symmetrical front elevation is six windows wide, with an advanced gable at each end, each three windows wide. The six central window openings are flanked by redbrick buttresses with offsets. The two central windows and the ground-floor windows in each gable have sandstone lintels and sills with terracotta hood mouldings, while the first-floor windows have terracotta sills and a continuous moulded terracotta string course running at sill level. Above the two central openings is a rendered fascia panel with lettering reading 'HARDING MEMORIAL PRIMARY SCHOOL'.

South Elevation

The south side elevation to the south gable is three windows wide, detailed in the same manner as the central front elevation, and incorporates an advanced square-plan tower with a pyramidal roof, an iron weather vane, and a stone corbelled eaves course. The south elevation continues as a two-storey range featuring tripartite groupings of multi-pane timber casement windows with redbrick aprons at each level, flanked by double-height redbrick pilasters with rendered Doric capitals. This arrangement is repeated on the north elevation of the same range.

West Range

The west range comprises a pair of attached redbrick blocks, the windows of which are currently boarded up. The southern block is double-height single-storey with a hipped roof, a deep moulded eaves course, and four tall window openings. The northern block is two-storey, detailed as above, and is abutted by a two-storey flat-roofed projection to the northeast.

North Range and Further Features

The east elevation has a terrace spanning both the north and south ranges. The north range is detailed in the same manner as the south range, and is abutted to its north elevation by a two-storey lean-to corridor wing with timber casement windows to the upper level and replacement timber casement windows to the lower level, flanked by redbrick Doric pilasters. A further square-plan tower abuts the east end of this range, detailed as elsewhere, with a segmental-headed entrance fitted with a replacement timber glazed door and a universal access ramp.

Setting

The school occupies a modest site on the west side of Cregagh Road. Its south elevation fronts onto a small lane and its north elevation fronts onto Dromore Street, with bitmac playing areas to the rear and north. The site is enclosed to the street by iron railings on a low plinth wall, with matching pedestrian gates supported on octagonal-plan redbrick and sandstone piers. The side elevations are enclosed by redbrick walling and modern fencing.

Historical Background

The building's origins lie with Willowfield Parish Church, which was consecrated in August 1872. A day school connected to the parish was established in 1884, though its early years were not without difficulty: a schools' inspector disapproved of a mixed school largely attended by boys being conducted solely by two female teachers, and the lady principal resigned shortly after opening. That original school, known as Willowfield No. 1, closed in 1927 and became the parochial hall.

Willowfield Parish Hall, also designed by William John Fennell, was the first structure built on the present site: work began in 1910 and the hall opened in 1911, after which work began on the Willowfield National Schools. The current school building — Willowfield National School No. 2 — was designed by Fennell, working as part of the practice Fennell and Clarke of Scottish Provident Buildings, Belfast, and was formally opened on 5th April 1913. It entered valuation records that year at a valuation of £200 (exempted). Valuers' notes record that the total cost was £4,500, covering the school, a caretaker's house to the rear, and school furniture costing £243, with the building intended to accommodate 500 pupils.

The Irish Builder of 12th April 1913 reported that the school provided accommodation for 400 pupils, half on each floor, with ample cloakroom and lavatory accommodation supplied with hot and cold water. The pitch pine dual desks — where seat and desk are combined in a single piece of furniture — were specially designed and supplied by Messrs Musgrave and Co Ltd, who also installed the hot water pipe heating and ventilating radiators. Plumbing, gas work, and electric bells were carried out by Mr J. Sayers of Belfast. Electric clocks were supplied by Messrs Gibson and Co Ltd, Belfast. Playground accommodation, both open and covered, was described as ample and well arranged, and a caretaker's house was erected on part of the site. The general building contractors were Messrs Robert Corry Ltd. The Irish Builder described it as 'one of the most up-to-date and perfect schools in the city'.

In 1922 the school was renamed Harding Memorial School in tribute to Canon Charles William Harding, who had been incumbent at Willowfield from 1900 until his death in 1922. The building was extended between 1929 and 1932 to designs by Reginald Sharman Wilshere and continues in use as a primary school to the present day.