Community Hall, 21 Circular Road, Moneymore, Magherafelt

This is a stone-built community hall on Circular Road, Moneymore, originally erected as an infant school and teacher’s residence between 1840 and 1859. The building was commissioned by the Drapers Company and designed in a Tudor Gothic style by William John Booth. Despite extensions, it retains the core elements of Booth’s original design.

The hall is long, eight bays wide, and partially single-storey and two-storey high, with gabled slate roofs. The front elevation facing Circular Road has five modern four-pane windows set within a single-storey gabled block, which was extended from three to five bays. A connecting porch with a corbelled three-centre arched entrance has a modern timber door. To its right is a two-storey section with a gabled bay containing a narrow vertical window with chamfered sandstone surrounds, and a ground floor window with similar detailing, both featuring modern glazing. The final bay has a narrow vertical window with a chamfered sandstone surround. This gabled bay has decorative kneelers and weathered bargeboards. The northeast elevation has two bays; one has a square-headed sheeted door, and the other mirrors the style of the gabled bay on the front, but with a narrow vertical window instead of a full window, both with modern inserts. A modern flat-roofed single-storey extension on the northwest elevation obscures a gabled bay. The older parts of the building feature squared coursed white limestone walls with sandstone quoins. A two-bay extension at the southwest end has a roughcast finish with imitation kneelers and bargeboards, while the extension at the northwest corner is smooth rendered and unpainted. The steeply pitched roofs are covered in natural slates, and a chimney stack rises from the ridge of the former classroom block.

The site sits on an unkempt plot at the southern end of Circular Road, close to the junctions with Conyngham Street and Springhill Road. A previous T-plan building occupied the site, as indicated on an Ordnance Survey map from 1832. The 1832 Ordnance Survey map, revised in 1856, depicts the present building identified as an infant school. Following its initial use, the building became a hall and was subsequently purchased by the Catholic Parish for £300. It later reverted to school use until a new school was built on Springhill Road in 1973. The building is located within a conservation area and is owned by the Roman Catholic Church.