St Malachy's College, 36 Antrim Road, Belfast, BT15 2AE

St Malachy's College is an attached, asymmetrical, three-storey red brick Gothic Revival school on the Antrim Road in north Belfast, built between 1865 and 1867 to designs by the architect John O'Neill, with the contractors being Messrs Byrne. The listing extends to the school building itself, together with the entrance walls and gates. The building continues to serve its original function as a boys' grammar school.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The site has an educational history stretching back to 1832, when the McCabe family's property — known as Vicinage House — was leased to establish the Diocesan Seminary of Down and Connor. One member of the McCabe family, William Putnam McCabe, had been a noted figure among the United Irishmen. The seminary was officially opened on 3 November 1833, the feast day of St Malachy, with boarders housed at the Crumlin Road site and day pupils attending at St Patrick's National School in Donegall Street. By 1843, there were 50 boarders at Crumlin Road and 100 day pupils at Donegall Street. The seminary operated both as a grammar school for the mercantile and professional classes and as a training institution for priests.

The Vicinage House site first appears on the large-scale town plan of Belfast dated 1858, and part of the footprint of that early building is retained to the north of the present structure, with the possibility that some earlier fabric survives within the current building. The present college buildings were constructed between 1865 and 1868. O'Neill's original design included a chapel and a belfry stage to the tower, but neither was executed according to his plans; the chapel was built some years later to the west of the site. The central portion of the main building and a wing allocated to the Christian Brothers were completed at this stage.

The president of the college, Dr Richard Marner, was succeeded in 1876 by Dr Henry, who added a further wing on the site originally intended for the chapel. By 1877 the school was known as St Malachy's Diocesan College. In 1881–82, further additions by architect Mortimer Thompson included the chapel, a wing to the south, and an entrance gateway on the Antrim Road. The Belfast Directory of 1887 records that these enlargements had cost £8,000, carried out with the aim of enabling pupils to study for Royal University degrees, Intermediate and Civil Service examinations, and commercial pursuits. The school at that time comprised three departments: the university school, the intermediate school, and the mercantile school.

By 1900 the building was valued at £500 (later reduced to £380 on appeal) and was recorded as having cost £9,504 to build. At that time there were 108 secondary boarders paying £40 per year, with day pupils paying £8 10s. Classrooms and the refectory occupied the ground floor and part of the second floor; professors' apartments occupied the remainder of the second floor; dormitories filled the entire third floor; and the rest of the building served as offices and servants' apartments. The chapel, valued separately at £84, had an estimated construction cost of £1,488.

Some of the stained glass installed in later years is said to have been the work of Harry Clarke, though the art historian Snoddy attributes it to Richard J. King, who worked for Harry Clarke and took over as manager following Clarke's death. King was active from 1928 to 1974, though the precise date of his work at St Malachy's is uncertain.

Additions were carried out in 1926 to designs by John P. McArdle, and a gymnasium and lavatories were added to the north of the rear quadrangle in 1935 to designs by John Valentine Brennan. The south wing was extended in 1949 to designs by McLean and Forte, in a style matching the original. Further buildings were added to the west of the main building in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1990s. Today the school has around 1,200 pupils and no longer has a boarding department, though the diocesan seminary — now called St Joseph's — continues to occupy part of the site in a building to the east of the main quadrangle.

EXTERIOR

The building is irregular in plan, with a central spine wing running on a north–south axis. To the north end of this spine wing stands an entrance tower. A north wing is set on an east–west axis and is abutted by an irregular group of structures to the north. To the south, a further wing also set on an east–west axis abuts the attached St Malachy's Chapel, and is itself abutted by a further south projection.

The roofs are steeply pitched and covered in natural slate, with roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles and lead valleys. They are set behind slightly raised gables topped with sandstone coping, decorative apex stones, and gableted kneeler stones. Moulded cast-iron guttering is supported on dentilled red brick eaves courses, with cast-iron downpipes. Large red brick chimneystacks have tapered bases and slated abutments.

The walling throughout is red brick laid in Flemish bond, with flush black brick courses and a projecting brick plinth course with a sandstone chamfered trim. Paired window openings have sandstone surrounds: trefoil-headed at ground floor level, shouldered at first and second floors, with flush splayed sandstone sills. At ground and first floor levels, the openings are set within polychromatic brick and sandstone gauged pointed-arched surrounds; at second floor level they are square-headed with chamfered flush sandstone lintels. Windows are timber sash throughout.

The principal east elevation of the spine wing is seven windows wide, with a slightly advanced four-stage tower to the north end. This tower has a steep natural slate pyramidal roof surmounted by a wrought-iron Celtic cross, and paired lancet windows with 2/2 timber sash windows. Flat-roofed painted masonry entrance porches sit in the re-entrant angles at either end of this elevation, each fitted with replacement hardwood glazed double-leaf doors.

The rear west elevation of the spine wing is sixteen windows wide and is abutted by a single-storey lean-to corridor. The first and second floor windows here have paired segmental-headed openings with chamfered surrounds, gauged brick heads, shared sandstone sills, and multi-pane timber sash windows. The corridor has pointed-headed polychromatic brick and sandstone window openings fitted with steel casement windows.

The north elevation of the south wing is four windows wide, detailed in the same manner as the spine wing. It has decorative dormers to the roof with hipped slate roofs, turned timber colonettes, and timber casement windows — those to the west having leaded coloured glazing. The east gable is abutted by a glazed concrete pedestrian bridge.

The south elevation of the south wing is symmetrical, nine windows wide, with a pair of advanced gabled breakfronts at either end and a central entrance bay with a large wall-head dormer. There are four dormers matching those on the north elevation, and sandstone crosses to the apexes of both gables. The principal doorway has a pointed-headed opening formed in gauged polychromatic brick and sandstone, with a shouldered sandstone door surround and a trefoil panel over it, embellished with discs and a quatrefoil panel. The door itself is vertically sheeted timber and opens onto a universal access ramp. To the west end of the south wing is a three-storey projection with plainer detailing, including tripartite timber casement windows at second floor level and 2/4 timber sash windows at the floors below. This projection has wall-head dormers to its west elevation.

The south elevation of the north wing is six windows wide, detailed as per the principal spine wing. An pointed-headed door opening to the east bay is formed in polychromatic brick and sandstone with a shouldered sandstone surround and a vertically sheeted timber door. This elevation extends eastwards by a further three bays as a three-storey red brick block incorporating a pointed-headed carriage arch, detailed as above. The north wing terminates to the west in a symmetrical gabled elevation with triple pointed-headed window openings to each floor, sharing sandstone sills and fitted with timber sash windows.

The north rear elevation is abutted by a further three-storey north projection, a two-storey block, and a lean-to extension. Window openings here have gauged brick segmental heads, and the roof has four decorative dormers matching those on the south wing.

SETTING

The college is situated to the west of the Antrim Road and to the north of the Crumlin Road, set within a large enclosed site. The site is accessed via bitmac avenues: from the Crumlin Road through a pair of replacement steel gates set between large red brick and limestone piers with moulded capstones, and from the Antrim Road through decorative wrought-iron gates supported on large cast-iron Gothic piers. The central spine wing is abutted by St Malachy's Chapel, which encloses the rear yard to the south. The college forms a significant part of the wider built heritage of north Belfast.