St James C.O.I Hall, 202/206 Antrim Road, Belfast, Co.Antrim, BT36 7QX

St James Church of Ireland Hall

A two-storey Gothic Revival former national schoolhouse built in 1872 to designs by William Henry Lynn of the architectural practice Lanyon, Lynn and Lanyon. The building stands on a triangular site bound by dwarf sandstone walling topped with wrought iron railings, shared with St James' Church of Ireland to the north of the junction between Cliftonville and Antrim Roads in Belfast.

The irregular plan form faces east towards Antrim Road and consists of a two-storey block aligned north-south, a gabled block with lower eaves and ridge projecting to the east, and a projecting three-stage square tower abutted to the northeast where the blocks meet. A seven-bay rectangular extension was added to the north of the two-storey block in 1957 to designs by local architect E.P. Lamont, at which time the former school was converted into a church hall.

The pitched natural slate roof features angled black clay ridge tiles, moulded sandstone kneelers and raised stone verges to the gables. The square tower carries a metal cross finial to its slated pyramidal roof. Original cast iron ogee guttering is set on continuous stone corbels and discharges to square-section cast iron downpipes. The 1957 extension has a pitched concrete tile roof with cast metal ogee guttering with rectangular hoppers, discharging to square-section downpipes.

Walling throughout the original building is of rock-faced random-coursed pink sandstone with smooth sandstone dressings. The extension has reconstituted stone walling of similar colour with smooth reconstituted stone dressings, with plinth courses of smooth dressed sandstone at the original building continuing at the same level to the extension in smooth finished reconstituted stone.

The front elevation on the east side features a single-bay projecting gabled section to the southeast with a full-height pointed arch opening. At the top centre of the gable is a three-light pointed arch tracery window, separated from a similar square-headed window below by a smooth dressed sandstone spandrel with moulded rectangular panels. Continuous window mullions are shared by both windows. The seven-bay extension to the north has double square-headed fixed light windows with leaded glazing and transoms set to the top third of each window. The first and last bays are abutted to the east by small rectangular flat-roofed projections.

Windows throughout are a mixture of pointed-arch and square-headed openings having chamfered cills and surrounds, housing fixed window lights (some with openings) with clear leaded glass composed of small vertical rectangular panes. Wire mesh has been fitted to ground-floor windows. Some windows to the extension are later uPVC casements.

The tower is three stages, with the uppermost stage containing tripartite pointed arch openings with timber louvres at the belfry. A larger single glazed pointed arch opening sits between the second and first stages, with a smaller square-headed window at first stage level. Each stage is defined by a horizontal moulded sandstone string course.

The northern elevation has the tower with three pointed arch timber louvered openings to the belfry and a single pointed arch window to the second stage. The gabled two-storey block contains a double square-headed window to the first stage looking onto the gable of the 1957 extension, which projects from the two-storey gable of the original schoolhouse and abuts terrace housing to the north.

The southern elevation features the gabled two-storey block with a three-part pointed arch tracery window to the first floor set on a moulded sandstone string course, and two bipartite pointed arch windows set in pointed trefoil relieving arches to the ground floor. A projecting gabled entrance porch with hipped roof is attached to the west of the two-storey block, containing a smaller pointed segmental arch doorway with metalwork screen. A later stone-built block with a square-headed door opening extends to the west. The projection to the east has a pointed arch opening to the west with a recessed porch housing a polished timber door behind a metal screen, a quatrefoil window above the doorway and a double pointed arch window to the centre of the block. A small square-section chimney with single pot serves the original two-storey block.

The western elevation cannot be accessed due to the site boundary and modern school buildings to the west.

The triangular site is bound by dwarf sandstone walling of random-coursed rock-faced sandstone with smooth-faced sandstone dressings, topped by wrought iron railings between square-section pillars with roll-top coping. Mature trees border the interior setting, with an area to the south set to lawn and divided by a wide tarmaced path linking gates on Cliftonville Road to gates on Antrim Road. A second set of gates on Antrim Road provides the main access to the school via a tarmaced area to the north of the church, with a boundary pedestrian gate at the front of the former school.