Westcourt Centre, Former St Mary's Christian Brothers School, 8-30 Barrack Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT12 4AH

Former St Mary's Christian Brothers Secondary School, now the Westcourt Centre, is a detached symmetrical multi-bay two-storey red brick former school built around 1929 to the designs of Francis McArdle, who completed several commissions for the Catholic Church during this period. It is a good example of the Georgian Revival style commonly used in school building during the early 20th century, and much of its historic fabric and detailing survive, including the original plan form.

The building is U-shaped on plan, facing northwest, with a pair of pedimented breakfronts to either end of the main front, an additional block to the south, and a two-storey central stair wing to the rear. It sits within its own enclosed site on the south side of Divis Street and is now in community educational use.

The roofs are pitched and covered in natural slate, with roll-moulded terracotta ridge tiles and lead valleys. There is a single red brick chimney stack to the north wing. Cast-iron ogee-moulded guttering runs to a moulded concrete eaves cornice, with cast-iron box hoppers and square downpipes breaking through. The walls are machine-made red brick laid in Flemish bond, with a projecting red brick plinth course with chamfered concrete trim, a concrete frieze between the floors, and a further painted concrete frieze below the eaves. Window openings are square-headed at first floor level and segmental-headed at ground floor level, the latter with diamond-faced keystones and lateral keystones. Sills are concrete, and throughout the building the windows are replacement 6/6 timber sash windows with horns, except where otherwise noted.

The symmetrical front elevation is fifteen windows wide, with a central entrance and pedimented breakfronts of three windows each at either end. Full pediments to both breakfronts are formed in moulded concrete and are surmounted by a concrete cross on a stepped base, with a lunette opening to the pediment that has keystones and a red brick apron with decorative terracotta stepped trim. The first floor windows to the breakfronts have red brick aprons, while the central window has a Portland limestone apron with a decorative carved crest framing a Celtic cross and ribbon banner bearing Latin and Irish lettering. The central entrance breakfront is tripartite, with a deeply coved and quoined round-headed door opening, a diamond-faced keystone, replacement double-leaf timber panelled doors, a timber spoked fanlight, and internal glazed doors. To either side are slender round-headed window openings with block-and-start concrete surrounds and horizontally-glazed 2/2 timber sash windows. The breakfront is surmounted by a painted concrete frieze and parapet, with a central panelled parapet wall flanked by squat panelled piers bearing raised lettering reading 'Christian Brothers' / Secondary School.' The entrance opens onto three concrete steps leading to a bitmac-paved forecourt. A further single-bay two-storey flat-roofed red brick block was added to the south end around 1940.

The north side elevation is nine windows wide, detailed as per the front elevation. The rear elevation extends at either end as a pair of gable-ended projections with a central flat-roofed two-storey red brick stair wing. The courtyard elevations are abutted by a cantilevered concrete terrace coated in bitumen, with wrought-iron railings and a pair of steel fire escapes. Ground floor window openings to the courtyard are gauged brick segmental-headed, and first floor openings are square-headed, with some original 6/6 timber sash windows surviving. To both floors are tall door openings with vertically-sheeted timber doors having sidelights and multi-pane overlights. The south side elevation is nine windows wide, detailed as per the front elevation.

The site is enclosed to Divis Street by wrought-iron railings set on a low red brick and concrete plinth wall with matching gates. The paved site is finished in bitmac and includes a detached single-storey block to the north and a range of single-storey rendered buildings to the rear.

The history of the site carries particular significance, as it stands adjacent to the location of the first Catholic school in Belfast, opened in 1866 and designed by John O'Neill. The Institute of the Brothers of Christian Schools — known as the Christian Brothers — was founded in 1802 by Edmund Ignatius Rice, a wealthy Waterford trader who was concerned by the lack of education available to the Catholic poor. He established free schooling for working and artisan classes, taught by monastically trained teachers, and the schools became an immediate success, spreading throughout Ireland and eventually worldwide. In Belfast, the Brothers opened their first school in Divis Street on 12th May 1866, followed by further schools in Donegall Street in 1867, Oxford Street in 1874, and a Trades Preparatory School at Hardinge Street in 1903 providing technical education for older boys.

The present building opened in 1929 as St Mary's Christian Brothers Secondary School for Boys, replacing an earlier ragged school on the site. It offered spacious classrooms and modern facilities including science laboratories, and entered valuation records in 1930 at £345. Valuer's notes from that time record accommodation comprising 16 classrooms, two cloakrooms, a waiting room, and a teachers' room, at a construction cost of £20,000. A long range of buildings to the rear provided washrooms and stores. Minor additions in 1931 raised the valuation to £363, and a further block was constructed at the extreme right of the building around the mid-20th century. Following the Education Act of 1947, which introduced compulsory education to the age of 15, numbers at the school grew steadily and it became a grammar school in 1954. From 1962 the school began to develop a campus at Glen Road, and in 1998 the Barrack Street building closed, marked by a function at which President Mary McAleese spoke — her husband and brothers having been former pupils. The school is vividly described by alumnus, poet and novelist Ciaran Carson in his 1997 work The Star Factory.

Now renamed the Westcourt Centre and supported by the Christian Brothers of Northern Ireland, the building houses a community facility aiming to promote social inclusion and reduce disadvantage through education.