'Moneyrea' National School, 44 Church Road, Moneyreagh, County Down, BT23 6BA

Moneyrea National School is a symmetrical single-storey building rebuilt around 1840 on the site of an earlier church school, located east of Church Road in Moneyreagh village. It has group value with the nearby non-subscribing Presbyterian church and manse, and is of local and social interest as an early surviving example of a rural church school in the area and as evidence of the congregation's early commitment to education.

The building comprises a rectangular plan with a projecting porch to the front and an off-shot to the rear. It has a hipped natural slate roof with blue and black angled ridge tiles and a rendered chimneystack with a single terracotta pot. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods support the eaves. The walling is roughcast render.

The principal elevation faces west and is symmetrical, comprising a central entrance porch with openings to north and south, flanked by two windows on either side. Windows are round-headed replacements in uPVC. The west elevation of the porch features a window and a masonry plaque with painted lettering reading "Moneyrea National School". The round-headed door surrounds to north and south have pilasters, a moulded frieze, and infilled transom lights with scotia-moulded archivolts and carved lion head keyblocks. A timber-sheeted door opens to the south elevation; the north elevation door is infilled. The north gable is blank and is abutted on its far left by a small lean-to with a timber-sheeted door opening west. The east (rear) elevation has two windows to the right; to the left is a slated off-shot with a timber casement window to its east elevation and a timber-sheeted door to its north elevation. The south gable is blank and is abutted on its right by a small rendered extension attached to a rendered garage to the south.

The school is bounded to the west by the original wrought-iron railings, gates, and a low roughcast rendered wall facing the road. To the rear it is bounded by fields with a mature hedgerow.

The building's architectural interest has been reduced by the introduction of uPVC windows, and its plan form has been lost.

The school was built following the National Schools system introduced in 1831 and rebuilt to standard design around 1840. An earlier school house on this site, dating from 1822–1824, had been funded by a parliamentary grant of £73 16s 11d secured through Fletcher Blakely, the minister of Moneyrea Non-subscribing Church from 1809 to 1857. That first school provided classical and mercantile education for boys, with a needlework school for girls established shortly after. In 1839 the two schools were amalgamated, and the current building was constructed around this time. The school sought recognition under the National Board, which came in 1842. The Education Commissioners reported in 1854 that there were 108 pupils on the rolls, comprising 68 boys and 40 girls, rising to 126 in summer, with average daily attendance around 60. The present building was eventually superseded by the Richard Lyttle Memorial School, which opened in 1908 to designs by Hobart & Heron, and later by Moneyrea Primary School, which opened in 1961 further to the north. The school house has fallen into disuse in recent years but remains in the ownership of the nearby church.