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

St James's Church Hall is a two-storey Gothic Revival former national schoolhouse built in 1872, designed by William Henry Lynn (1829–1915) of the prominent architectural firm Lanyon, Lynn and Lanyon. It stands on a prominent triangular site at the junction of the Antrim and Cliftonville Roads in Belfast, within shared grounds alongside St James's Church of Ireland. The building was converted into a church hall in 1957, when it was extended to the north and north-west to designs by local architect E. P. Lamont, who was active between the 1930s and 1960s.

Historical Background

St James's Church of Ireland was designed by the same architect, William Henry Lynn, and built between 1869 and 1871, with McLaughlin and Harvey as contractors. Its foundation stone was laid on 11th September 1869 and the completed church was consecrated on 2nd March 1871. The adjoining schoolhouse, known as St James's Schools, followed in 1872. The combined rateable value of the church and school was recorded at £450 at that time.

Both buildings were severely damaged during the German bombing of Belfast on the night of 15th April 1941, when falling incendiary bombs reduced the church to a shell, leaving only its tower, steeple and belfry intact. The church was rebuilt between 1946 and 1954 to designs by Richard Mills Close (1880–1949) and was reconsecrated on 11th September 1954. The damaged schoolhouse was not restored until 1957, when it was extended and converted into a parish hall by E. P. Lamont. According to St James's Select Vestry, a predecessor hall had been designed by Robert Young of Young and Mackenzie and opened in 1939; the present hall is larger than that original and takes in the site of houses destroyed in the 1941 bombing. The church continued in use as an Anglican place of worship until its closure and deconsecration on 29th June 2008, when the congregation merged with that of St Peter's Church of Ireland on the Antrim Road to form the Parish of St Peter and St James. At the time of survey, the former school and adjoining hall were in use by the Antiochian Orthodox Church and the Indian Christian Community.

Exterior

The building has an irregular plan form. The original school comprises a two-storey block aligned north to south, with a lower gabled block projecting eastward, and a projecting three-stage square tower where the two blocks meet at the north-east corner. A seven-bay two-storey rectangular extension, added in 1957, is attached to the north end of the original block.

Walling throughout the original building is of rock-faced random-coursed pink sandstone with smooth sandstone dressings. The 1957 extension is faced in reconstituted stone of a similar colour with smooth reconstituted stone dressings. A smooth dressed sandstone plinth course runs along the base of the original building and continues along the extension in matching reconstituted stone.

The pitched roofs of the original building are covered in natural slate with angled black clay ridge tiles, moulded sandstone kneelers, and raised stone verges to the gables. The 1957 extension has a pitched concrete tile roof. The square tower is topped by a slated pyramidal roof with a metal cross finial. Original cast iron ogee guttering is set on a continuous stone corbel and discharges to square-section cast iron downpipes. The 1957 extension has cast metal ogee guttering with rectangular hoppers discharging to square-section downpipes.

Windows throughout are a mixture of pointed-arch and square-headed openings with chamfered cills and surrounds. They are generally glazed with fixed lights — some openable — in clear leaded glass composed of small vertical rectangular panes. Wire mesh is fitted to ground-floor windows.

Principal (East) Elevation

The front elevation faces east towards the Antrim Road. To the south-east, a single-bay gabled projection features a full-height pointed arch opening containing a three-light pointed arch tracery window to the top of the gable, separated from a similar square-headed window below by a smooth dressed sandstone spandrel with moulded rectangular panels. Both windows share continuous mullions.

The three-stage square tower sits at the meeting point of the two-storey block and the gabled projection. At the third (belfry) stage it has tripartite pointed arch openings with timber louvres; below this a single larger glazed pointed arch opening spans 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 seven-bay 1957 extension to the north has double square-headed fixed-light windows with leaded glazing and a transom set to the upper third of each opening. The first and last bays are each abutted to the east by small rectangular flat-roofed projections. The flat-roofed projection to the south-east abuts the tower and has three-part square-headed replacement uPVC casement windows. The flat-roofed block to the north-east has a two-part square-headed fixed-light window and a set of five concrete steps leading to a bricked-up doorway on the east facade. The second bay from the right is shorter than the other principal windows and has two-leaf diagonally boarded timber doors below the opening, reached by two concrete splayed steps.

Northern Elevation

The tower has three pointed arch timber-louvred openings at belfry level and a single pointed arch window to the second stage. The first stage of the tower is attached to a small projecting block of the 1957 extension. Two square-headed panels of blind arcading link the tower with the gabled two-storey block to the rear to the west; a double square-headed window below at first-stage level looks onto the gable of the 1957 extension, which is abutted to the north end of the slightly projecting two-storey block. The 1957 extension projects from the two-storey gable of the original school building and abuts terraced housing to the north, which continues along the Antrim Road.

Western Elevation

The western elevation could not be viewed at the time of survey, being obscured by the site boundary and modern school buildings to the west. The original two-storey block has a small square-section chimney stack with a single pot. A smaller gabled porch is attached to the south-west of the two-storey block.

Southern Elevation

The gabled two-storey block has 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 at ground-floor level. The projection to the east has a pointed arch opening to the west, with a recessed porch containing a polished timber door behind a metal screen; above the doorway is a quatrefoil window, with a double pointed arch window at the centre of the block. The tower rises above the eastern block, with three-part pointed arch timber-louvred openings visible at the third stage.

A projecting gabled entrance porch with a hipped roof is attached to the west of the two-storey block, featuring a smaller pointed segmental arch doorway with a metalwork screen, and a later stone-built block with a square-headed door opening extending to the west.

Setting

The school occupies shared grounds with St James's Church of Ireland, on a triangular piece of land at the north of the junction between the Cliftonville and Antrim Roads. The site is enclosed by dwarf sandstone walling topped by wrought iron railings between square-section pillars with roll-top coping. The walling is of random-coursed rock-faced sandstone with smooth-faced sandstone dressings. Mature trees line the interior boundary, with an area to the south laid to lawn and divided by a wide tarmacked path linking gates on the Cliftonville Road to gates on the Antrim Road. A second set of gates on the Antrim Road provides main access to the school via a tarmacked area to the north of the church. Boundary walling continues north along the Antrim Road, with a pedestrian gate to the front of the former school. The pillars, gates, walling and railings are included within the extent of the listing.