Former Strabane Technical College, Derry Road, Strabane, Co Tyrone, BT82 8DX

Former Strabane Technical College, Derry Road, Strabane

This is a large, detached, purpose-built technical college built in 1937, sitting to the east side of Derry Road in Strabane. It is one of the few significant historic buildings remaining in the town and forms a prominent local landmark. The building is executed in a free style with distinctive Art Deco elements, and the listing extends to the college itself, the former caretaker's house, and the entrance gates and gatepiers.

Overall Form and Plan

The college is a multi-bay, two-storey building arranged on a U-shaped plan around an internal courtyard, with lower two-storey extensions filling the interior of the court. To the east there is a one-and-a-half-storey hall, abutted to the north and south by single-storey extensions. At the rear, a hipped-roof former gymnasium block adds variety to what are otherwise simple, repetitive elevations.

Roofs, Walls and General Materials

The roofs are hipped and covered in natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles. Red brick chimneys punctuate the roofline, and a rendered parapet wall runs along the principal west elevation. The walls are built in red brick laid in English garden wall bond over a smooth rendered plinth, with painted rusticated quoins, a smooth moulded string course at first-floor level, and a plain rendered frieze to the eaves. Rainwater goods are steel, including ogee-moulded guttering and box-hoppers with a geometric motif. Window openings are square-headed throughout, now fitted with replacement aluminium casement windows and painted concrete sills.

Principal West Elevation (Derry Road Frontage)

The main elevation facing Derry Road is the most architecturally ambitious. A central projecting breakfront contains the principal entrance and is surmounted by an oversized Art Deco stepped pediment — the building's most striking feature. The entrance itself is a square-headed opening reached by concrete steps with a rendered retaining wall terminating in ball finials. Timber-panelled double-leaf doors are surmounted by a transom light. The doorcase is flanked by smooth rendered pilasters and crowned by a closed pediment supported on Art Deco-style rendered brackets. There is one window to each side of the entrance at ground level, and four windows to the first floor above. The plain rendered frieze at eaves level incorporates a projecting string course, with a raised parapet above having a felt covering. The central breakfront itself is crowned by a painted concrete stepped pediment containing a square-faced clock (with glazing), flanked by a pair of Art Deco console brackets. Above the pediment rises a further central stepped corbel with felt covering. To either side of this upper composition sits a plinth block with a concrete ball finial.

North, South and East Elevations

The north elevation is fourteen windows wide, with regularly spaced windows on two floors divided by a painted string course. The south elevation is thirteen windows wide and is detailed in the same manner. The east elevation is abutted by various flat-roofed single- and two-storey rendered structures, together with a central five-bay, one-and-a-half-storey rendered hall with a hipped slate roof, rusticated quoins, painted rendered walling, and round-headed window and door openings now fitted with uPVC windows and doors.

Internal Courtyard

The internal elevations of the U-shaped plan are rendered with regularly spaced windows and are largely intact. Within the courtyard there is a symmetrically arranged flat-roofed toilet and cloakroom block, detailed to match the rest of the internal elevations.

Entrance Gates and Gatepiers

The principal entrance from Derry Road is aligned with the front door of the college and consists of a pair of red brick piers with rendered quoins, cement capstones, and ball finials, hung with steel gates.

Former Caretaker's House (now a Restaurant)

Immediately to the right of the entrance gates stands the former caretaker's house, built at the same time and in the same style as the college. It is a single-storey, square-plan building with a pitched natural slate roof, terracotta roll-moulded ridge tiles, and plastic rainwater goods (cast iron to the rear). A painted rendered parapet wall rises to form a rendered gable to both the north and south elevations. The road-fronting west elevation features a two-bay breakfront with a raised Art Deco-style concrete pediment, a central stepped corbel, and a pair of cement ball finials to either side. Gold lettering applied to the west and north gables reads "The Old Schoolhouse," indicating the building's current use as a restaurant. The walls are red brick in English garden wall bond with painted cement rusticated quoins and a projecting string course to eaves level. Window openings are square-headed with painted concrete lintels and sills, fitted with uPVC windows and timber shutters. The north elevation has a square-headed door opening with a four-panelled timber door, a rectangular overlight, and rendered pilasters with plinth blocks flanking a projecting cement pediment supported on Art Deco console brackets. The door is now accessed via a concrete disabled-access ramp with steel railing. Valuation records from 30 November 1937 describe the house as "newly erected" and valued at £15 (later reduced to £12). Its first occupier was Henry Donaghy, succeeded by Elizabeth Montgomery and then Kathleen Reid. The accommodation comprised a kitchen, scullery, pantry, sitting room, two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a WC, with a small yard and an open coal store. Valuers of the time noted it as "excellently planned and constructed and in good situation within the curtilage of the school" and described it as a "solidly built house, rather ornamental exterior, interior is fair."

Site Boundaries and Later Additions

The site is bounded to the west along the road by a low roughcast wall with coping, and to the rear by large open grassed sports grounds. Two lightweight construction classroom blocks were added at the rear of the college in 2010.

Historical Background

Valuation records from 1936 record the Technical School as being in the course of erection as a site owned by the Strabane Regional Education Committee, with a note that the building would "not be near completion till June or July 1937." A brass plaque in the entrance hall records that the school was formally opened on 15 September 1937 by Lady Herdman, with Captain J. C. Herdman D.L. (Chairman of the Strabane and Castlederg Regional Education Committee), Very Reverend Edward Clarke M.A. D.D. (Chairman of the Technical School Committee of Management), and Thomas J. Carroll (Principal of the Technical School, Strabane) taking part in the ceremony.

Technical education had been available in Strabane from the early 1920s at a school on Upper Main Street, for some years under Miss Galvan as Principal. In 1927 Mr T. J. O'Carroll succeeded her — he is remembered locally as a great teacher and strict disciplinarian, noted for the catchphrase "d'ye see? d'ye follow?" Under his leadership enrolment grew substantially and a new, larger site was sought. The 1937 building on Derry Road offered woodwork, engineering, commerce, and domestic science at both day and night classes, and included a modern gymnasium at the rear — the first in Strabane — alongside new playing fields. In 1942, Mr T. J. Carroll was dismissed by the Strabane and Castlederg Regional Education Committee following his attempt to establish a Gaelic language class in the school. He was succeeded as principal by Mr Sam Rainey. In 1972 the school came under the management of the Western Education and Library Board, with Mr Sean Diamond appointed as Principal. In 1988 it was incorporated into the North West Institute of Further and Higher Education, though classes have continued on the campus. The building first appears, labelled as the "Technical School," on the fourth edition Ordnance Survey map of 1951.