Malvern Primary School, Forster Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT13 1HW

Malvern Primary School is a symmetrical red-brick modernist primary school designed by R.S. Wilshere, located on the south side of Forster Street in the Lower Shankill Estate, North Belfast. The building is arranged on a quadrangular plan with a central courtyard, slightly projecting end bays to the north, stairwell bays, and a two-storey red-brick flat-roof extension to the south.

The roof is hipped with Roman tiles and rounded tiles to ridges and hips; the central bay has a flat roof and parapet (covering not visible), while the southern extension has a felt roof and red-brick chimneystack. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods with square hoppers are mounted on projecting timber eaves around the courtyard.

The walling is English garden wall-bonded red-brick with a moulded eaves course and concrete dressings. A concrete string-course runs at sill level at ground floor and to the first floor of the central bay. The internal courtyard walls are finished in cement render.

Windows throughout are a variety of timber sash with horns and multi-paned timber casements. Some feature plain painted reveals with red-brick voussoirs, while others have cement-rendered moulded architraves with projecting sills and corniced canopies on scrolled corbel brackets. Large multi-paned timber casements to the east and west elevations are arranged in groups of three with cement-rendered surrounds and moulded concrete apron panels between floors. All window openings to the two-storey extension have projecting concrete sills. Round-headed arched openings to the internal courtyard contain six-light timber casements with painted cement render apron panels.

The principal north elevation is symmetrically arranged with a lower central bay flanked by end bays. The central bay features a narrow multi-paned stairwell window at centre with a carved roundel above bearing a decorated shield, four square twelve-paned fixed timber windows to the first floor, and two 12/12 windows to ground floor. Entrance doors to ground floor are positioned left and right, accessed by two concrete steps and a concrete ramp respectively. Each door is housed in a pedimented cement-rendered doorcase with moulded frame, plain entablature, and corniced pediment. The left entrance door features a wide replacement timber door with a two-paned transom light over it.

The east elevation displays five sets of multi-paned windows arranged in groups of three, divided by brick piers. The far right bay has a 6/9 sash window in architrave with corniced canopy above three narrow 2/2 timber casements at ground floor. The far left bay stairwell window has a moulded apron panel.

The south elevation has a central projection from the stairwell bay (concealed) and is abutted by the two-storey flat-roof extension. The east elevation of the extension has three four-paned fixed timber windows to the first floor on the left and right; the ground floor contains four small openings with the inner ones boarded and outer ones fitted with timber vents, plus a modern metal service door in a cement-rendered surround to the left.

The west elevation of the extension has eight small timber-framed windows at first floor and four boarded window openings at ground floor, with a round-headed modern metal entrance door with cement-rendered archivolt to the left.

The west elevation has a central bay seven windows wide at each floor, framed by shallow breakfronts rising above the eaves line, with cement-rendered eaves bands decorated with a swags and tails motif and a narrow window to each floor. Left and right bays each have windows arranged in groups of three. The far right bay has a stairwell window.

The school is situated in the Lower Shankill Estate surrounded by twentieth-century terraced housing and south of Crumlin Road Court House. It is enclosed by modern metal railings with a playground to the west.