Parish Centre, 50 Brook Street, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT52 1PY

Parish Centre, 50 Brook Street, Coleraine — Former Irish Church School, dated 1871

This former Church of Ireland school, now a parish hall, was built in 1871 and stands on a prominent corner site at the junction of Brook Street and Circular Road in Coleraine town centre. It is one of the few remaining buildings of distinction in this part of the town and makes an important contribution to the historic character of the area. It also has group value with the nearby St Patrick's Parish Church.

Historical Background

The building was constructed at a significant and turbulent moment in the parish's history. The Church of Ireland was disestablished in 1871, and at this time St Patrick's parish lost much of its property and the patronage of the Honourable the Irish Society. The Irish Church School was built at the height of this uncertainty. It was first recorded in the Annual Revisions of 1872, valued at £35, and continued in educational use until at least 1930. By the early 20th century, the Ordnance Survey map of 1904 also records its use as St Patrick's Parochial Hall. Under the First General Revaluation of property in Northern Ireland in 1935, the building's value was recorded as £6, possibly in error. The Second Revaluation (1956–72) raised the value to £70.

In 1964 a modern two-storey cement-rendered hall was added to the north, connected to the original building by a single-storey stairwell extension. This extension was undertaken to address the declining membership and social engagement of the parish during the changing climate of the 1960s and 70s, with new activities directed particularly at young people. The joint rateable value of both buildings reached £544 by the close of the revaluation in 1972. In the late 20th century the interior of the Victorian hall was modernised and rededicated as a Parish Centre; a plaque on the ground floor records its rededication by the Bishop of Connor on 26th April 1989.

Architectural Description

The building is one and two storeys in height, constructed in Flemish-bonded red brick on a chamfered stone and red-brick plinth, with sandstone dressings throughout. The plan comprises a rectangular central block with projecting gabled wings to the east and west, an original lean-to entrance porch to the south, and the modern stairwell extension to the north. The roof is pitched natural slate with angled ridge tiles and lead-lined valleys. There is a rendered chimneystack to the northwest gable, and plastic rainwater goods on timber eaves. A sandstone first-floor sill course runs along the east elevation, and the eaves at the gables are lined with cut red brick.

Windows are a variety of replacement timber casements with horizontal glazing bars set into sandstone blocked surrounds; those to the south are set into stop-end chamfered reveals. Some 1/1 sash windows appear to the east wing, all with horns, some with cambered heads featuring drop finial detail in chamfered reveals with splayed sills.

The principal entrance is on the east face of the east wing. At first-floor level there are four windows. At ground floor, a group of three mullioned windows sits to the left of centre and a bipartite mullioned window to the right, both under relieving arches. To the left is a replacement segmental-headed timber-sheeted door with cast-iron door furniture in a sandstone blocked surround, surmounted by a stone canopy on carved console brackets.

The south elevation of the central block has two sets of bipartite mullioned windows. To the right are modern timber-sheeted entrance doors surmounted by a slated canopy, with a modern wall-head dormer insertion above.

The right (east) gable, which is two storeys, has two 1/1 sash windows at first and ground floor — the ground-floor left window being narrower — and to the apex of the gable a sandstone plaque inscribed "IRISH CHURCH / SCHOOLS / 1871". The left (west) gable, which is double-height, is lit by two three-light casement windows surmounted by a louvered vent in a sandstone surround.

In the re-entrant angle to the west wing sits the slated lean-to porch, lit on its right cheek by a two-pane fixed timber window. The porch opens to the south with a replacement pointed-headed timber-sheeted door with cast-iron door furniture, accessed via two sandstone steps with an original cast-iron gate.

The west gable has three regularly arranged timber windows at both first and ground floor and a recessed roundel with keystones at cardinal points above. The right bay is blank; the left bay has a modern metal door in a cement-rendered surround.

The north elevation of the central block has three sets of bipartite mullioned windows, abutted to the right by the modern stairwell extension, which is of no architectural interest. The right gable has two three-paned window openings in which the top and lower panes are boarded and the central panes fitted with louvered timber vents. The left gable is lit by two three-light casement windows.

Setting

The building sits to the northeast of St Patrick's Parish Church on a prominent corner site at the junction of Brook Street and Circular Road, surrounded by a variety of two-storey terraced dwellings and commercial units ranging from the Victorian era to the late 20th century. To the north, at the junction of Union Street, stands a seven-storey mid-20th-century red-brick office block. To the southwest lies Anderson Park, accessible from Brook Street. Directly to the north is a mid-20th-century cement-rendered church hall connected to the original building by the single-storey stairwell extension. The building is set slightly back from the street behind modern brick paviors and is bounded by original red-brick walls with pointed sandstone coping topped by cast-iron railings with finials. A cast-iron gate encloses the porch to the south. There is a car park to the west.