Friends' School Lisburn, 6 Magheralave Rd, Lisburn, County Antrim, BT28 3BH

Friends' School Lisburn, 6 Magheralave Road, Lisburn, County Antrim

This is a three-storey, three-bay Victorian school with associated two-storey wings, dated 1878, designed by the architect J.C. Marsh and built for the Society of Friends (Quakers). It stands on the east side of Magheralave Road, north of Lisburn city centre, on the original site of an 18th-century Quaker schoolhouse. The building is also recorded as a monument.

Architectural Description

The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with clay ridge tiles, exposed rafter ends, and timber bargeboards with decorative mouldings. Cast-iron rainwater goods are used throughout, with ogee-moulded gutters and circular downpipes, though some have been replaced in uPVC. The tall red-brick chimneys have a smooth rendered plinth, corbelled upper courses, and a moulded sandstone cornice. The walls are laid in Flemish bond red brick with a cement-rendered plinth, and are decorated with fluted terracotta and cement string courses.

Windows vary by floor. At ground floor level, 2/2 timber sliding sash windows have horizontal glazing bars and horns under flat arched heads; their cills form part of the enlarged plinth. At first floor, the windows have segmental-arched heads, recessed jambs with decorative corbelled upper courses, and an additional recessed head course, with a moulded sandstone continuous cill course. At second floor, 1/1 timber sliding sash windows sit under round-headed arched heads with individual sandstone cills.

The principal entrance consists of a pair of stilted round-headed arched openings with cement hood mouldings and a key-block, flanked by brick pilasters rising to foliated carved sandstone capitals. The left-hand capital bears the date "1878" and the right-hand capital bears the initials "U.P.S." (Ulster Provincial School). The left opening is glazed and forms a porch; the right leads to the front door, which is set at right angles to the dividing pier. The porch is approached by two sandstone steps leading to geometric tiled flooring and has a groin-vaulted ceiling. Straight ahead within the porch is a large stilted round-headed arched window with matching surrounds. The timber door to the left comprises three elongated vertical glazed moulded panels above a solid wood-grained horizontal moulded panel at the bottom, with brass ironmongery and a stilted round-headed arched overlight.

The principal (south) elevation is symmetrically arranged. The central bay has the principal entrance at ground floor level, paired windows at first floor, and a wall-headed dormer with a single window and decorative corbelled brickwork at second floor. The matching flanking gabled bays each have a two-storey canted bay rising to a cement-moulded cornice surmounted by a castellated parapet, with paired second-floor windows and decorative crow-stepped corbelled brickwork to the gable head.

The west elevation is uniformly arranged, with two windows to the ground and first floors left of centre (note vertical glazing bars at ground floor), and a wall-headed dormer embracing triplet round-headed arched windows with an oculus centrally positioned above. Decorative corbelled brickwork runs to the eaves and dormer gable. The left-hand side drops to basement level, where a small flat-roofed abutment has a timber door. Steel-framed fire escape stairs are fixed to this façade. The left-hand side is abutted by a two-storey-over-basement four-bay wing, with stilted round-headed arched timber sliding sash windows matching the arch details of the principal elevation at ground floor, and segmental-arched timber-framed quadripartite casement windows with cills and decorative brickwork aprons at first floor. Continuous cement-moulded and terracotta brick string courses match those of the main building. This wing is further abutted by a two-storey-over-basement three-bay flat-roofed red-brick addition in English garden-wall bond, minimalist in style with hopper heads dated 1936. Each bay comprises a large central 9-pane timber casement window flanked by narrower 6-pane windows.

The north elevation is abutted by a modern extension of around 1970. The east elevation is asymmetrically arranged, with a secondary access located right of centre, a single ground-floor window with vertical glazing bars to the left, a smaller timber casement window to the right, and two first-floor windows above. The right-hand side is abutted by a two-storey four-bay wing (without basement) matching the west abutment. The east face of this wing presents a symmetrically arranged façade with ground-floor doors with matching surrounds and first-floor windows flanking a plain chimney breast whose stack has been removed. The door to the right has been partially modernised.

Interior

Much of the internal character has been retained, including original Victorian classrooms. Some fabric from the earlier 18th-century school also survives within the interior. A wall to the rear of the east wing, exposed during renovation, shows evidence of what may be the 18th-century stone structure with later brickwork above it. Considerable refurbishment of the interior has taken place over the years.

Setting

The building and its associated wings now form part of a larger school campus incorporating extensions added to the north and west at various stages and in different styles during the 20th century. The approach is via modern gates leading up a tree-lined avenue, which partially screens the school from view. To the front are a series of car parks, beyond which lie various preparatory buildings to the south. Playing fields and a large changing pavilion predominantly occupy the north of the site.

Historical Background

The Society of Friends (Quakers) has maintained an interest in education for both boys and girls since its foundation in the mid-17th century. The Quaker belief that each individual, male and female, could be a vehicle for spiritual truth — and therefore needed to be literate and able to express themselves clearly — formed the basis of the Friends' commitment to educational provision. The minute books of the Society record that a Quaker education was being offered in Lisburn as early as 1700. In 1764, a committee of Friends recommended that a boarding school be established in each of the provinces of Leinster, Munster and Ulster. The Ulster project was boosted by a legacy from a prosperous linen merchant, John Hancock, who left a bequest of £1,000 to purchase land in or near Lisburn on which to build a school for Quaker children. The site at Prospect Hill was chosen for overlooking the town of Lisburn and the Meeting House, and in 1766 a lease was signed with the Earl of Hertford. Work on a road to the school began almost immediately and the first master, John Gough, was appointed in 1774. A school appears to have been built at this time, a note of 1776 recording an application for £4 for lime for the schoolhouse. However, in 1792 the schoolmaster left to take up another position and the school closed.

In 1793 the decision was taken to re-open the school, by then known as the Ulster Provincial School. A sum of £3,000 was raised for erecting larger buildings, and by 1794 a building of two wings had been completed. As many as 56 boarders were being accommodated by 1800. A sketch of the school as it appeared around 1850 is reproduced in the school history by Newhouse. In 1862, Griffith's Valuation listed the male and female schoolhouse, gatehouse, offices and land, with the buildings valued at £55, situated in a plot of over 22 acres.

Construction of the present school buildings began in April 1877 under the headship of Joseph Radley, a Quaker from England. The architect was J.C. Marsh and the contract was awarded to Dixon & Co at an agreed cost of £3,790 14s 10d. Joseph Chandler Marsh was a Quaker architect, born in Surrey, who moved to Belfast after 1861. His other works include the Irish Temperance League Buildings in Lombard Street, Belfast, and the Friends' Meeting House in Portadown. Funds were raised from various quarters: £100 was subscribed by Friends in the south of Ireland, £50 by Sir Richard Wallace (the local landowner), £1,200 by English Friends, £1,250 by various members of the Richardson family (a Quaker linen-manufacturing family), and £1,600 by members of the Society of Friends in Ulster.

Building Committee minutes reveal that the original intention had been to repair and extend the old school, but as work progressed, parts of the old building were found to be in a dangerous condition. The front of the school, containing the hall, headmaster's study and reception room, constituted part of this rebuild. Until the 1970s, however, parts of the old school remained to the rear of the front block. Map evidence suggests that the east and west wings of the old school were retained and raised or repaired in the late 19th century. The front entrance bears a datestone of 1878 and building work on the main school building was completed in 1880.

Further building work was carried out in the 1890s, again to the designs of J.C. Marsh, including the provision in 1892 of a dining hall, science classroom, boys' and girls' gymnasium-playrooms, laboratory, boys' workshop and photographic room, followed by the opening of a swimming pool to the rear of the school in 1899.

By 1900 the school had begun to enrol non-Quakers alongside Quakers. The 1911 census shows that boarders at this time came from all over Britain and Ireland, with other denominations vastly outnumbering Quakers. Of 31 boarders, only seven were members of the Society of Friends; the majority of the remainder were Presbyterian (19). A significant proportion had been born in England, Scotland or the south of Ireland, and two brothers boarding at the school had been born in China.

Various minor additions and improvements were made during the first quarter of the 20th century. In 1929 gas lighting was replaced by electric light, and in 1930 eight coal fires in the school were replaced by electric radiators. An extension to the west of the main building, containing additional classrooms for the expanding numbers of day pupils, was added in 1935–6, the contractor being Isaac Thompson, who continued to work on the school until the mid-1960s.

Following the school's decision to remain voluntary-aided after the Education Act of 1947, a large increase in the number of day scholars made further extension necessary. In 1947, G.P. and R.H. Bell, a Quaker firm, were appointed architects to the school and completed several alterations and additions over the ensuing decades, including a large extension to the rear of the school in the 1970s which replaced some of the earlier 18th- and 19th-century structure. Recent additions have included a sports hall completed in 2000 and the installation of lifts in the main building. There is no longer a boarding department; the buildings formerly used for boarding have been converted for use as the school's Geography and ICT facilities. Further building is planned. Today the school is regarded as one of the leading grammar schools in Northern Ireland. The Society of Friends retains a strong interest, with ten representatives on the Board of Governors.