Schools Meals Kitchen, St Patrick’s Primary School, Collon Lane, Pennyburn, Londonderry, BT48 8LG

This is a single-storey school meals kitchen and dining hall, constructed between 1940 and 1959 as one of the first large primary school meals kitchens in Northern Ireland under the 1947 Education Act. It represents a good example of early post-war school design. The building’s design is an “H” shape, with two blocks of equal length and height joined by a lower servery connecting block. All elevations are faced with precast concrete tiles and slate, incorporating exposed pebble aggregate.

Two entrances are located on the southwest side of the kitchen, featuring continuous windows with projecting concrete surrounds that are mirrored on other windows throughout the building; the plane of the glass and external wall face are aligned. A long wall of the kitchen has high-level continuous windows, while the dining room has principal windows in each gable and continuous high level windows along the long walls. A later dining room extension was created by removing windows from the northwest gable. The servery features windows similar to the kitchen, but without the high-level glazing. The building has three flat roofs, each with generous overhangs, finished with mineral felt, concealed gutters, and exposed circular aluminium downpipes. Entrance doors to the kitchen are timber with rectangular fanlights, and windows are metal, featuring a mixture of side-hung casements and top vents. The soffits are smooth-rendered, with the mineral felt turned down the thin fascia.

The school meals kitchen is located at the northeast end of the school’s assembly hall, with corridor access from all parts of the school, and was designed as a unified entity with the main school building (reference HB01/25/017A). The work was completed in 1954, by architects Messrs Corr & McCormick and main contractors Messrs Orlit (N.I.) Ltd. The surrounding paving has been replaced with bitmac, and the building plinth is painted navy blue; however, the design remains sympathetic to the school, utilizing the Orlit form of construction and similar external finishes. Despite the building’s architectural importance, it is no longer listed; the decision to list was revoked by the Northern Ireland Department of Education’s plan to replace the school on the same site, leading to its demolition in 2002.