Former School, Gates, Railings And Walling, 14 High St., Cushendall, Co.Antrim

Former school, teacher's residence, gates, railings and walling, built around 1859 in red sandstone. Now a private dwelling, this is a detached, gabled, multi-bay two-storey building with an attached teacher's residence, set within its own landscaped grounds on an elevated site to the immediate west of Cushendall village centre, facing east and set back from the south side of High Street.

The building was constructed as a Free School and was the second major schoolhouse to be erected in the village. The first had been located atop Court McMartin, a rath fortification lying between Mill Street and High Street, erected around 1823 by Francis Turnly. The contemporary Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1830–38 recorded it as a paying school providing education, for a fee, to male and female scholars of both Protestant and Catholic denominations. The Townland Valuation of 1834 valued it at £3 and 16 shillings and described it as a first-class building — that is, a new or nearly new slated building — measuring 50 feet by 26 feet and standing 12 feet 6 inches in height.

The red sandstone schoolhouse at No. 14 High Street was built around 1859 on land leased from the Turnly family, the principal landowners of the village, as noted in Griffith's Valuation of that year when the building was still under construction. By 1864 the completed schoolhouse was first valued at £10 under the Annual Revisions, which also noted that the single-storey cottage abutting the south-west side of the building had been erected at the same time as the teacher's residence. The school was administered under the National School System and there was little change to either the schoolhouse or the teacher's residence between the 1860s and the turn of the 20th century. Following the construction of a second National School on Mill Street around 1864, the High Street school became predominantly associated with the Protestant denomination.

In 1899, the Annual Revisions revalued the school at £7 and separately valued the adjoining cottage at £3. The 1901 Census of Ireland recorded that the teacher's residence was occupied by William Henry Devlin, a National Schoolteacher, who lived there with his sister, also a teacher. The census building return described the residence as a second-class dwelling with six rooms and a turf house as its sole outbuilding. The schoolhouse and teacher's residence were depicted in their current layout on the Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1903.

The schoolhouse continued to be managed by the National School System until the partition of Ireland, when the Trustees of Layde Parish Church took over administration of the site. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland, covering 1936 to 1957, it was known as the Cushendall Public Elementary School and had risen in value to £15 and 10 shillings, with the teacher's residence occupied by a Mr. or Mrs. E. Davis and valued at £7 and 10 shillings. Ownership of the schoolhouse remained with the Turnly family until at least the 1970s, though the adjoining cottage was purchased outright by Layde Parish Church in 1964. By the end of the Second General Revaluation, covering 1956 to 1972, the total rateable value of the school stood at £21 and the teacher's residence at £12 and 10 shillings.

In 1972, the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society described the building as "a very pleasant red sandstone building, end on to the road, in a verdant garden, with Tudor dripstones and curly bargeboards." The schoolhouse was included in the Cushendall Conservation Area in 1975 — only the second conservation area to have been designated in the province at that time, and one of Northern Ireland's four pilot schemes for conservation during the European Architectural Heritage Year. The building was listed in 1976 and converted to a private dwelling in 1987–88, at which point conservation works included re-slating, repointing, and the repair of existing and installation of new window frames.

The building is irregular on plan. The front east elevation comprises a central two-storey advanced gable with a single-bay section to the right, an entrance bay to the left, extending further left as a three-bay double-height section corresponding to the former school hall, which occupies the south end of the dwelling and is set back slightly. The roof is pitched natural slate with black clay ridge tiles, lead valleys, and a single tall rendered chimneystack with octagonal clay pots. Cast-iron guttering on iron drive-through brackets serves the smooth rendered eaves course, with cast-iron hoppers and downpipes. The gabled elevations to north and south have decorative timber bargeboards to sheeted overhanging eaves. Walling is roughly coursed, rough-hewn red sandstone with a chamfered tooled stone plinth course and cement pointing.

Window openings are square-headed, set in stop-chamfered sandstone ashlar surrounds with some hood mouldings, and fitted with replacement horizontally-glazed 2/2 sliding timber sash windows with ogee horns. The central gable on the front elevation has decorative timber bargeboards to sheeted overhanging eaves and replacement paired 2/2 sliding timber sash windows with a bowed bay to the re-entrant angle.

The two-storey entrance bay is fronted by a lean-to entrance porch with a Tudor-arched opening formed in stop-chamfered sandstone. The porch floor has modern tiles; the door itself is an original vertically-sheeted timber door with brass furniture and an overpanel, set within a further Tudor-arched opening. The former hall section has horizontally-glazed 3/3 timber sliding sash windows.

The gabled south side elevation to the former hall has a raised coping surmounted by a stone finial. The gable contains a quatrefoil panel set above a flush sandstone relieving arch, which in turn sits over a double-height square-headed door opening — formerly a window opening — with a chamfered sandstone surround and replacement multi-pane timber French doors with a tripartite overlight. The north rear elevation is built close to a rubblestone retaining wall, with a small passage obstructed at the east end by a lean-to projection. This projection has a round-headed door opening with replacement glazed doors on the west side. The single-bay two-storey gabled east side elevation is detailed in the same manner as the front gable.

The building retains much of its original historic fabric and detailing, expressing Tudoresque motifs and diminutive proportions.

The site is enclosed by matching red sandstone walls and piers supporting double-leaf iron gates and matching railings, which may be replacements. There are rubblestone retaining walls to the east and west, a pebble forecourt to the east, a walkway to the south incorporating granite paving slabs, and a landscaped garden to the south. The elevated, set-back position of the building means it overlooks the village of Cushendall. It forms an important part of the social history of the village and contributes significantly to the varied architectural styles of the historic village centre.