St Patrick's Church Hall (aka Old School House), Victoria Street, Ballymoney, Co Antrim, BT53 6DW

St Patrick's Church Hall, Victoria Street, Ballymoney

A small, single-storey gable-ended schoolhouse built in 1874–76 by the notable Belfast architects Young & MacKenzie. The building is constructed in dark basalt rubble with cream brick dressings and stands on the eastern side of Victoria Street in the centre of Ballymoney, within the grounds of St. Patrick's Church of Ireland. Though historically significant locally, insufficient original fabric survives to merit listing, and better examples of similar Victorian public architecture are already protected.

The schoolhouse was designed with a symmetrical frontage facing south. The main section is basically rectangular, with the principal elevation featuring two projecting single-storey gabled porches set at either end, each with a pointed arch doorway and timber sheeted door. Between the porches are three tall pointed arch window openings that rise into gablets. The east gable of the main hall contains a pair of pointed arch windows with an oculus above. Attached to the north-east is a lower single-storey gabled return with a pointed arch window rising into a gablet on its eastern face. To the west of this return is a later, lower flat-roofed extension with a smaller lean-to extension and rear porch further west.

The pitched and gabled roof has overhanging timber verges and fascias with purlin ends expressed externally. It is covered in natural blue and black slate with matching fireclay copings. A tall red brick chimneystack rises from the pitched roof of the return. Window and door openings are dressed with cream or straw-coloured clay brick, with cut sandstone sills. Most original timber frames have been lost, though surviving examples feature Y-tracery and hopper openers. The flat-roofed extension contains a window with a steel frame. The walls of the main hall and return are built in basalt rubble with a battered rubble plinth, whilst the extensions are finished with roughcast render. Rainwater goods have been replaced in uPVC, though sections are now missing.

The western boundary is enclosed by a rubble basalt wall with sandstone capping and wrought-iron railings. A pedestrian gate is flanked by square gate pillars with square caps and a segmental-headed decorative wrought-iron arch. Wrought-iron hooped railings segregate the former playground from the remainder of the church site, with a kissing gate providing access to the church grounds and graveyard.

To the rear, a yard is enclosed by the boundary wall to the north and a rubble wall with a segmental-headed doorway to the east, whose timber sheeted door has partially collapsed.

The schoolhouse was constructed at a cost of £870 in connection with the neighbouring parish church. Work was completed in early 1876, though the debt was not fully cleared until later that year, when the church advertised lottery tickets for a sewing machine to help discharge the costs. The building appears on the 1893–94 town plan of Ballymoney without the rear extensions, which were added later. Originally known as Church Street School, it joined the National System around 1910, becoming Church Street National School. The school closed sometime after 1926 and was subsequently used by the church as a parish hall, a role confirmed on the 1954 Ordnance Survey map. The rear extensions are shown on the 1970 edition. The building served as a hall until 1973, when a new St. Patrick's parish centre was built in Queen Street to the west of the church.