Beechlawn School, 3 Dromore Road, Hillsborough, County Down, BT26 6PA

Beechlawn School, formerly the Old Rectory (also known historically as the Glebe House and the Archdeaconry), is a substantial former rectory built around 1760, standing on the east side of Dromore Road on the southern approach to Hillsborough. It is now in use as a school for children with special needs. The conversion to institutional use in the mid-twentieth century has resulted in the loss of much original interior fabric and the addition of four-storey extensions to each side of the front elevation, which detract from the building's architectural interest. Despite these changes, the former dwelling retains its fine proportions and detailing to the front elevation, and has rarity value and historic interest as an unusually large 18th-century rectory.

Architectural Description

The building is a detached three-storey, three-bay former rectory over a concealed basement, rectangular on plan and facing west. It is rendered in painted pebble dash, with smooth render (or painted masonry) to all corners and a rendered plinth course. The roof is hipped, covered in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles, and has a single replacement chimney stack to the north. The deep overhanging eaves are supported on paired timber brackets finished with a convex moulding to the facade, with steel guttering on iron brackets fixed to a timber fascia.

The front west elevation is five windows wide. Window openings are square-headed with painted concrete sills and replacement timber sash windows. The centrepiece of this elevation is a prostyle Tuscan Doric portico, comprising two pairs of Tuscan Doric masonry columns resting on a stone-flagged platform approached by three steps, and supporting a plain entablature above. The tripartite painted masonry doorcase consists of a square-headed door opening with a replacement timber glazed door, flanked by a pair of plain sidelights within a plain masonry surround.

The north side elevation is abutted by a four-storey flat-roofed rendered annexe built around 1960. The four-storey rear elevation is five windows wide, with unevenly spaced uPVC windows. The south side elevation is abutted by a full-height flat-roofed projection and a lean-to wing to the basement level, with pebble dash rendered walling and uPVC windows throughout.

Setting

The building sits well back from Dromore Road on its own substantial site, with a large tarmac car park to the front, a tarmac playground to the rear, and two ranges of single- and two-storey school buildings dating from the 1960s to the south and east. The site is enclosed to the road by a rubblestone wall and splayed concrete walls flanking a pair of steel gates on concrete piers.

Historical Notes

The Old Rectory appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map (1834) labelled as "Glebe Ho[use]," shown with one major outbuilding, four smaller buildings, and Glebe lands extending from the old Dublin Road to the borders of Large Park. A Gate Lodge was also present at the road entrance, though it was not named until the second edition of the Ordnance Survey maps. The Townland Valuations of 1834 valued the house at £37 8s., after one third of its value had been deducted.

The Ordnance Survey Memoirs for Hillsborough record that the Rectory was the residence of the Archdeacon of Down, the Reverend Walter Mant, who was supported by tithe and glebe lands. Griffith's Valuation listed the property under the title of "Archdeaconry," at that time in the possession of the Venerable Walter B. Mant, with the plot extending to 8 acres and 2 roods, and the buildings and outbuildings valued at £55. The Annual Revisions continued to refer to the building as the Archdeaconry until they ended in 1930.

The Rectory appears to have been continually developed over the years. Brett records that it was enlarged in 1803, 1828, and 1830. The second edition Ordnance Survey maps (1858) show a number of outbuildings surrounding the Rectory, though by the 1850s only three large outbuildings remained to the south-west where five had stood in the 1830s. By the time of the second edition, two summer houses had also been built and are named on the map. By the third edition (1902–3), the building is finally labelled "Rectory," and there is little change to the site until the fourth edition (1919–20), in which a large fourth outbuilding appears to the east of the main building.

There is some debate about the building's original purpose. Hobart suggests it was built in 1762 as either a farm and stabling for the Downshire horses or as a dower house for the Downshire family. John Barry, however, records that it was in 1762 that the present building was first used as a Rectory, when Wills Hill gave a lease of 20 acres of land and a dwelling house to Francis Hutchinson, Archdeacon of Down, and his successors in perpetuity, noting that until that year there had been no fixed residence for the minister of the parish.

The Rectory changed hands in 1870 when John Gibbs became the new Archdeacon of Down, the first to do so following the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland that same year. In 1892 the Reverend Richard Arthurs Kernan took over residency and found the house and grounds too large for his small family. The 1901 Census records Kernan living at the Rectory with his wife Sarah and their 13-year-old daughter Eveleen Bowie Querall. The other buildings on the premises at that time included a stable, coach house, harness room, cow house, calf house, shed, and store. The House and Buildings return for the same year lists the Rectory as a first-class house with 28 rooms, owned by the Representative Church Body. The Annual Revisions reflect the building's oversized character: its value was reduced in 1892 from £53 to £42, with the valuer noting that the "house [is] much too large for tenant and [a] part [is] not occupied." It was devalued again in 1918 to £30, during the tenancy of the Reverend Francis Matchett, who had become Rector of Hillsborough Parish Church in 1913.

In 1951 the Rectory was sold to the Down County Regional Education Committee, who decided to convert the grounds into a residential school. In 1954 the Irish Builder reported that Belfast architects Ferguson and McIlveen had been contracted to carry out extensions and alterations to prepare the building for use as a school, and in 1955 the same firm installed a new plumbing system. In 1962 a further extension was added by the Belfast-based practice David Wright Boyd & Co. The building continues to be used as a school for children with special needs.