Former St John's Primary School, St John's Road, Hillsborough, County Down

Former St John's Primary School, St John's Road, Hillsborough, County Down

This is a detached, gabled single-storey rendered former school attached to a single-storey-with-attic rendered former schoolmaster's house, both dated 1853. The building was provided by the Downshire estate — whose monogram it still bears — and has been vacant since 2002. It sits in a fine rural elevated setting on the east side of St John's Road, in the townland of Corcreeny, and has group value with the nearby St John's Church of Ireland, which was conceived and built at around the same time. The complex retains its overall composition, external materials and detailing, and is enhanced by the survival of a small coach house, a decorative cast-iron pedestrian gate, and the enclosing rubblestone walling. It holds significant social interest for the local community.

Form and Plan

The building is irregular on plan, facing southeast, and is set on a landscaped elevated site enclosed by rubblestone walling. The roofs are pitched natural slate with roll-moulded clay ridge tiles. There are two part-rendered redbrick chimneystacks with terracotta pots, and two slated and timber-sheeted gabled dormer windows. Cast-iron rainwater goods on iron brackets serve a rendered eaves course. The external walling is painted ruled-and-lined render, with cement coping to all gables. Window openings are square-headed with carved sandstone sills and fitted with uPVC windows, except where noted.

Principal and Side Elevations

The symmetrical front east elevation has a pair of slender gabled entrance porches, though the space between them is now occupied by a later glazed lean-to extension, with a further flat-roofed extension beyond. Each gabled projection carries a wall plaque bearing the Downshire monogram and raised lettering: the south gable reads "Girls School / 1853" and the north gable reads "Boys School / 1853."

The south elevation, which faces the road, has a large gabled projection at its east end with a pair of tall, slender window openings and a lozenge panel at the apex. The remainder of this elevation forms the former schoolmaster's residence, which has a slender gabled entrance projection and dormer windows to either side. The west gable of the schoolmaster's house is blank.

The rear west elevation of the school has two window openings. The rear north elevation of the schoolmaster's house is abutted by a pair of rendered lean-to additions dating from the early to mid-20th century. The north side elevation of the school building is dominated by a large gable matching that on the south side.

Setting and Outbuildings

The site is approached from St John's Road through a decorative cast-iron pedestrian gate set on rendered piers, with rubblestone walling to the road finished with stacked coping. The grounds contain mature Scots pine trees. To the northwest of the site stands a single-storey rubblestone former coach house with a pitched natural slate roof and a pair of redbrick-lined square-headed openings; the southern opening retains its original timber plank door. The interior of this coach house has cobbled flooring.

History

A school building first appears on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1859 for the Hillsborough area, situated slightly north of St John's Church of Ease in the townland of Corcreeny. The layout shown — an L-shaped building with a small outbuilding to the west used as a privy — has not discernibly changed since that time.

Planning for the building began earlier still. As far back as 1838, the Archdeacon of Down, the Reverend Walter B. Mant, was planning the construction of a Church of Ease at Corcreeny together with an affiliated schoolhouse. The church was built in 1840, but the school did not open until 1853, as confirmed both by a reference in the Irish Builder (Vol. 11, 4 June 1853, p. 362) and by the two date-stones above the boys' and girls' entrances. The school then operated continuously for approximately 150 years until its closure.

The building was let to the Church Education Society by the Marquis of Downshire free of rent, though it was valued at £5 10s. A building plan accompanying the valuation field book of 1861 records that the schoolhouse measured 58 feet by 22 feet, with a teacher's house attached to the west side measuring 16 feet by 22 feet and valued at £2. The schoolhouse retained a valuation of £5 10s. through the Annual Revisions until 1930, and no structural alterations are evident on subsequent Ordnance Survey editions, except that by the third edition of 1919–20 the building is recorded for the first time as "St John's School."

The school and church were both conceived to serve rural parishioners of Upper Kilwarlin who were either too distant from Hillsborough or felt increasingly excluded by the town's expansion; the school likewise provided a closer alternative to the major schools in Hillsborough and the surrounding district.

The school was accepted into the National Schools system in 1879 — notable because the National School system was implicitly non-denominational, yet the school maintained its association with the Established Church. Acceptance into the system created a salaried teaching post and the keeping of formal school records. The first recorded national school teacher was a Mr John Buchanan, who held the post between 1879 and 1881.

Over the decades the building served a variety of purposes beyond formal education. In 1880 the local Orange Order proposed to hold meetings there, though this was rejected by the school commissioners. A post office was installed in the converted teacher's house in 1897. During the 20th century the schoolhouse was regularly used for church events, vestry meetings, and local elections as a polling station.

One later principal of note was Mr Robert G. McCrory, who became school principal at the age of 20 in August 1939. He left to enlist at the outbreak of the Second World War and was killed at the front in 1943. The war also brought evacuated children to the area: names of evacuees from Belfast first appeared on the school roll in 1941 following the Belfast Blitz of April that year, though by August 1942 most had returned home as German bombing of the United Kingdom had effectively ceased.

The building was chronically prone to flooding and damp due to its low position relative to the road. A wartime application to the County Down Regional Committee for aid was rejected on grounds of scarce funds and materials. The damp problem was never satisfactorily resolved. The school privies, which dated from at least 1879, remained in use until at least 1974; repeated applications for their replacement were refused, as were other restoration projects. Former pupils recalled the general dilapidation of the interior and the poor condition of the toilet facilities in particular. The accumulation of these unresolved maintenance issues is understood to have contributed to the decision taken around 2000 to relocate the school to new premises, which opened in 2002. The last principal ceremoniously locked the doors of the former schoolhouse in 2003.