Mersey Street Primary School, 78 Mersey Street, Belfast, Co. Antrim, BT4 1EY

Mersey Street Primary School is a single-storey with attic, symmetrical red-brick school built in 1927 to designs by Reginald Sharman Wilshere (1888–1961), Architect to the Belfast Education Committee. It was constructed in a utilitarian neo-Georgian style as one of a number of new public elementary schools developed for the city following the establishment of the Belfast Education Committee under the 1923 Education Act. The building has since been converted to residential and commercial use, comprising twenty-three two-storey apartments completed in 2011 by Connolly and Fee. The listing covers the former school building including its boundary wall and railings.

Historical Background

Following the partition of Ireland in 1922, responsibility for education in Northern Ireland passed to local authorities by means of the 1923 Education Act, whereupon the Belfast Education Committee was established both to administer existing schools and to oversee the construction of new ones. The third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1902 records that Mersey Street was laid out at the turn of the 20th century, flanked on its north side by a football ground and to the south-east by a distillery. Contemporary Ulster Town Directories record that the street was home to a working-class community employed in the surrounding factories and shipyards. Growth in the local population, combined with the fact that Mersey Street was largely cut off from schools on the Newtownards Road by the Belfast and County Down Railway Line, made the construction of a new school necessary.

Reginald Sharman Wilshere was a Belfast-based English architect appointed by the Belfast Education Committee as its chief designer in 1926; he designed twenty-six schools before the outbreak of the Second World War. The Irish Builder recorded that "Wilshere's own idea is that if the children of a district have no beauty in their daily surroundings, they need beauty all the more in their schools." His technique was to construct large schools arranged around quadrangles with corridors opened to fresh air, and the architectural historian Paul Larmour states that these were the first modern schools to be built anywhere in Ireland. Larmour further describes the range of Wilshere's output as extending "from the neo-Georgian to the outright modernistic," with hints of modern German, Scandinavian and Dutch work, most built in brick with artificial stone dressings and roofs covered with Roman tiles, while classrooms were frequently finished in varying shades of colour. Mersey Street is one of Wilshere's earliest schools and a typical example of his standardised design approach, in which proportion and symmetry are applied to produce a coherent and legible building with an emphasis on well-being and a connection to the outdoors.

The school opened in 1927 and was valued at £750 under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57). The fifth edition Ordnance Survey map of 1931 depicts the school in its current layout, indicating that no major structural changes were made after the 1920s. By the end of the Second Revaluation (1956–72) its value had risen to £1,228. The building was listed in 1994. Following the demolition of hundreds of neighbouring houses under a government-sponsored redevelopment scheme, school attendance dropped to only eighty pupils by 2005, and the school closed in January 2006. It was subsequently incorporated into the local redevelopment plans. In 2010–11 it was converted into twenty-three two-storey dwellings and seven single-storey dwellings by Connolly and Fee. The conversion involved the demolition of parts of the existing school, removal of the existing floor and roof structure, construction of a new ground-floor slab and new upper floors, stairs, roof repairs, replacement of windows and doors, and new internal walls and finishes.

Plan Form and General Character

The building has a quadrangular plan form facing south, with projecting canted corner bays and a six-bay return to the north wing extending to the centre of the open quadrangle. Sitting at the centre of the quadrangle is a somewhat unique octagonal assembly hall. Despite its conversion to residential use, the exterior has retained much of its original character, style and proportions. The red-brick walling is enhanced by a variety of brick-bonding details, reconstituted stone dressings, and Classical details used sparingly around the entrances to provide a dignified public facade. The conversion is remarkably sensitive: mezzanine floors have been inserted within the dual-aspect classrooms to form compact apartments, accessed via a continuous modern canopy within the courtyard that resonates with Wilshere's trademark cloister arrangement. The building retains its balance of well-lit spaces alongside an economical use of materials and simple repetition.

Roof and General External Materials

The roof is hipped and covered with natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. A single square-section red-brick chimney rises above the ridgeline to the rear of the south elevation. Replacement timber fascia and boarded soffit are fitted throughout, along with replacement cast-metal rainwater goods comprising ogee guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes. Red-brick walling is laid in stretcher bond with cement pointing, with reconstituted stone plinth, cill, and frieze courses. Windows are generally square-headed with flush red-brick rowlock-course cills and paired replacement timber windows divided into multiple panes to match the original design, with top and bottom opening lights.

Principal South Elevation

The front elevation facing south is symmetrical, with a three-bay entrance breakfront flanked on each side by three bays of square-headed windows arranged in groups of three. Projecting canted bays occupy the outer corners of the elevation. These corner bays have flat roofs set behind parapets with reconstituted stone copings on brick soldier courses, and moulded concrete panels set flush with the windows. The narrowly advanced entrance breakfront has a parapet wall rising to a reconstituted stone coping. The main central doorcase comprises a square-headed opening with a reconstituted stone architrave and applied steel lettering to the head reading "THE SCHOOL 78." The replacement timber door has side lights and a fanlight and is recessed behind original double-leaf painted metal gates. The door is surmounted by a reconstituted stone cartouche and flanked by multi-pane timber windows with two-pane top-hung casements and soldier courses to the heads.

West Elevation

The west elevation comprises nine bays in the main block plus canted bays, each with full-height brick pilasters between paired timber casement windows arranged in groups of three. The first and last bays narrowly project and contain separate "BOYS" and "GIRLS" entrances, denoted by applied steel lettering to the reconstituted stone architrave heads and projecting hood moulds over. The doors are replacement square-headed timber doors with sidelights and square-headed fanlights, recessed behind painted metal gates. There is a projecting canted bay to the south and a smaller canted bay to the north, the latter having only one double window facing west.

North Elevation

The north elevation has multiple bays, with the central bay containing a group of three windows, flanked by narrowly projecting single bays with single casement windows. There are also shallow projections to the third bay on each side, each with single windows. All remaining bays have paired windows. A canted corner bay occurs to the west corner only.

East Elevation

The east elevation has twelve bays with a projecting canted section to the south corner. The first bay from the south houses the "GIRLS" entrance and the fourth bay from the north the "BOYS" entrance, each denoted by applied steel lettering to the reconstituted stone door architrave heads, with raised and fielded square panels at the outermost edges. The principal bays have full-height brick pilasters and paired timber casement windows arranged in groups of three.

Quadrangle

Access to the quadrangle is primarily through the "BOYS" and "GIRLS" doors at east and west, leading through vestibules to the open-air quadrangle. A rectangular single-storey seven-bay block projects from the centre of the south wing to the centre of the quadrangle, where the octagonal assembly hall is centred on the plan. The projecting block has a roof lantern to the first bay from the south wing. The octagonal hall has Flemish-bond red-brick walling with plain clasping pilasters, and banded reconstituted stone plinth and dado courses. All faces except the north are pierced by a single rounded arch doorway formed in gauged brick with a keystone and stops, each housing a square-headed timber door with sidelights and a fanlight. The hall has a hipped natural slate roof with projecting eaves set on soldier-course brickwork.

The internal elevations to all wings are divided up into twenty-three separate apartments, generally with tripartite timber casement windows at ground-floor level and horizontal six-light casement windows at attic level, with conservation skylights to the lower edge of the roof. Apartment entrances have a timber door with an offset vision panel and sidelight. A flat-roofed covered walkway with alternating vertical timber boarding and painted rendered panels flanks the entrances to individual apartments, replacing the original cloister. Each apartment has a private defensible outdoor space with a variety of paving slabs and decking interspersed with lawn. The quadrangle is formally laid out with intersecting pathways dividing lawned areas, and includes tree planting.

Setting and Boundary

The building is located to the north of Mersey Street, directly to the east of Redcliffe Street, with the principal entrance approached from the south. The site boundary is defined by a dwarf red-brick wall with a concrete coping and steel railings set between square-section red-brick pillars. The area between the dwarf walling and the school building is lawned with some established trees. Tarmaced parking bays are provided to the east and west where the railings abut the building. Replacement metal railings supported on a low brick wall spanning between square brick piers enclose the grounds more broadly.