The Steele Hall, Portora Royal School, Willoughby Place, Enniskillen, BT74 7HA

The Steele Hall at Portora Royal School

Portora Royal School sits on a high hill to the north-west of Enniskillen with fine views over the town. The entrance gates, which form the vista stop of Willoughby Place (one of the finest surviving Georgian and Victorian streets in Enniskillen), were made from the Corinthian columns of the portico of Inishmore Hall. The main driveway sweeps in an "S" curve through lawns with mature trees before reaching the main façade, which faces south-east and has an asphalted terrace with symmetrical steps down to the lawns.

The Steele Hall stands at the south-west end of the main block, beyond the Murfet Cloister (designed by Robert McKinstry in 1987, which replaced an open cloister by John Storie from the 1960s). A stepped courtyard with sand-cement walls and concrete paving separates the hall from the main building. The hall serves as an assembly space with classrooms below. It takes its name from a former headmaster.

Externally, the building is severely plain. Its structural form is nine bays long with a pitched, slated roof, sand-cement rendered walls, and very large sliding sash windows in painted timber, all set within segmental-arched openings. The slope of the hillside falls steeply away from the main building, so the classroom floor sits at natural ground level while the assembly hall floor is raised a few steps above the main building's terrace.

The south-east façade is plain except for two small, asymmetrically placed windows at classroom level. A cylindrical ventilating inlet projects from the roof apex. A fire escape stair was added in the 1990s; fresher render around it marks where the prefects' studies were removed at the same time.

The south-west façade displays the largest array of windows. On the upper floor, windows are coupled into three pairs with a single odd window to the north-west, beyond a plastered brick chimney with a second metal flue bolted to it. The ground floor windows line up with those above but with an extra window between the couples. Four large buttresses support this façade; one was installed in the early 1990s, but it is unclear whether the others are original or were added later to counteract outward movement of the walls caused by roof spread. The school boiler house and gymnasium abut this façade at its north-western end.

The north-west façade has a metal fire escape and another cylindrical ventilator in the apex. A small building from the 1930s is built against it. The north-east façade faces into the courtyard. Upper floor windows are paired but without the odd single window seen on the south-west side. An approach lobby abuts the building. On the lower floor, windows and doors are haphazardly placed, though plaster evidence shows that openings have been blocked up.