St Dominic's Grammar School for Girls, 135-137 Falls Rd, Belfast, Co.Antrim, BT12 6AE

St Dominic's Grammar School for Girls is a substantial four-storey school building with attic gables, built in 1897 to designs by John O'Shea and E. & J. Byrne. It stands on a corner site at the Falls Road and Cavendish Street in Belfast, within private school grounds that form part of the wider St Dominic's Grammar School for Girls complex. The building is constructed in the collegiate Byzantine style and presents a striking red brick exterior with polychrome detailing. It forms an integral part of a distinguished architectural group alongside the adjacent St Dominic's Convent (built 1868–70) and its attached Chapel (built 1926), all of which contribute important historic, social and cultural significance to the area.

Origins and Historical Context

The site was originally a two-acre plot owned by John Hamill off the Falls Road, which had not previously been occupied by any buildings. The Dominican Convent was built here between 1868 and 1870 to designs by John O'Neill (of O'Neill and Byrne), in what the architectural historian Paul Larmour described as the 'Belfast Byzantine' style. On 22 March 1870, seven nuns of the Order of St Dominic arrived from the parent house at Cabra, County Dublin, at the invitation of Bishop Dr Dorrian. They opened a day school on 25 April 1870 with four pupils, and a boarding school four days later with a single pupil. The convent first appears in the Valuation Revision Books in 1882, recorded simply as a convent with a valuation of £113. The contemporary observer O'Laverty described it as 'beautifully situated' and predicted that when its proposed new wing was complete, it would form 'one of the most imposing buildings in Belfast.'

In 1897, John O'Shea with E. & J. Byrne designed the school building as an additional wing to the west of the convent, in a style complementary to the original block. The Valuation Revision Books record that £6,700 was expended on this work, and the combined valuation of the buildings rose to £283 as a result. In 1926, the original block was extended to the north by Patrick (Padraic) Gregory in a corresponding style, with the valuation rising from £372 to £529 by 1929. Gregory also designed the chapel, which was built by Felix G. O'Hare and opened on 5 October 1930. The chapel is effectively two chapels — one for the convent community and one adjoining it at the sanctuary for boarding pupils. The mosaic floor of the sanctuary, in the Celtic style, was by Oppenheimer & Co. of Manchester, and the rose window was by Messrs Clarke of Dublin. In 1935, Gregory added a baldachino to the chapel. A new block for the Dominican community was later added to the east of the existing buildings by Samuel Stevenson & Sons. The school continued to expand through the 20th century: St Margaret's Wing was added in the 1950s, St Thomas' Building in the 1960s, and St Ita's and St Raymond's in the 1970s. The first phase of a further new building was completed in spring 2008.

Form and Layout

The school building is of originally L-shaped plan, facing south, with a three-storey hipped return to the rear north-east and a later hipped return to the western end of the rear façade. A recent single-storey flat-roofed five-bay extension connects the two returns at lower ground floor level, and modern school buildings project from the rear north-west. The 1926 extension by Patrick Gregory runs northward from the western gable in a complementary style.

The roof is of natural slate with two narrow bands of green slate on the southern side and gabled roof projections. Black clay roll-top ridge tiles run throughout. Each gable has moulded kneelers and a cross at the apex. A moulded dentilated cornice and corbelled brackets support replacement cast iron guttering, which discharges to replacement circular cast iron downpipes.

Principal (South) Elevation

The principal elevation faces south and is symmetrical, with a four-bay wide central section flanked by two-bay wide shallow projecting side gables. The lower ground floor is built of rock-faced random-coursed Giffnock Sandstone masonry. The upper floors are of red brick laid in Flemish bond, with red, buff and blue polychrome brick dressings.

At lower ground floor level, the windows are square-headed with dressed Scrabo Sandstone stop-chamfered surrounds, 1-over-1 pane sash windows complete with window horns, projecting sills and decorative external ironwork. At ground floor and first floor level, the windows have rounded arches formed by alternating gauged red brick and ashlar sandstone voussoirs, creating polychromatic arches. These are topped by a blue brick header course, with continuous projecting stone sills and rounded-arch timber casement windows. Decorative carving ornaments the stone string course at impost level at ground floor. The second floor windows have segmental arches. Each gabled projection is crowned by a single rose window with stone coping and leaded diamond glazing at attic level.

At the centre of the lower ground floor, a sandstone niche with a projecting pitched sandstone hood houses a statue of St Dominic, supported on a plinth.

The main entrance is reached by a flight of stone steps positioned to the east of the main building, leading to a two-storey porch that connects the school to the Dominican Convent. The porch is topped by an arcaded stone balustrade with corbelled coping and decorative cornice. A gabled cut sandstone surround, topped by a cross, frames a rounded-arch door opening flanked by engaged Corinthian columns. The entrance comprises a square-headed double-leaf timber panelled door with a leaded stained glass fanlight above, opening onto stone steps flanked by dwarf stone walling. A quatrefoil datestone above the door opening reads: 'ST DM AD 1897'. Round-headed windows flank the doorway projection at ground floor level, with square-headed windows at lower ground floor.

East, North and West Elevations

The four-bay east elevation is abutted by the main entrance porch, which connects the building to the Dominican Convent to the east and to the Chapel building to the north-east.

The north elevation has a seven-bay façade with a two-bay original north-east return and a single-bay later return to the north-west. A later single-storey flat-roofed extension connects the two returns at lower ground floor level, and at lower ground floor level modern buildings extend from the west and continue to the north and south-west. The north elevation generally has timber casement windows, with rounded-arch windows at ground floor, square-headed windows at first floor and segmental-arched windows at second floor. The original north-east return retains original square-headed double-hung timber sash windows at ground floor, with rounded-arch sash windows at first and second floors. The single-storey lower ground floor extension and the later north-west return have square-headed uPVC windows.

The west elevation is abutted by Patrick Gregory's 1926 L-shaped extension to the west and south, which has a ground floor of rock-faced random-coursed stone masonry. More recent school buildings extend further west, south and north-west from this earlier extension. Despite these later additions, the profile of the hipped roof at the west end of the original building remains largely unaffected.

Interior

Some original interior details have been lost due to modernisation, but many fine original features survive.

Setting and Boundary

The building stands within private school grounds accessed from the Falls Road through a set of tall square-section stone pillars in rock-faced basalt, each with a projecting plinth and moulded sandstone pyramidal coping, fitted with replacement metal gates. The eastern boundary along the Falls Road is formed by a rock-faced random-coursed basalt wall with irregular stone coping, behind which mature trees contribute to the interior setting. A raised north-eastern section of the boundary wall contains two separate pedestrian gates providing access from the Falls Road. Both have rounded-arch door openings with stop-chamfered dressed stone toothed quoins and voussoirs, fitted with replacement gates and metal screens.

The wider site includes the former Dominican Convent building to the east, the Chapel attached to the former Convent, modern school buildings of little architectural interest to the west, north-west and south, and a modern convent to the east also of little architectural interest.

Materials

The roof is of natural slate. Rainwater goods are replacement cast iron. Walling to the lower ground floor on the south and east is random-coursed rock-faced stone; above this the walls are of red brick with stone and blue brick dressings. Windows are a combination of double-hung timber sash, timber casement and uPVC casement types.