Former National School, Donaghmore Road, Glebe, Newry, Co Down, BT34 1SE

Former National School, Donaghmore Road, Glebe, Newry

This early 19th-century schoolhouse stands on a hillside beside St Bartholomew's churchyard. It is a plainly detailed vernacular building in virtually original condition and is unusual in this area of County Down for the proximity of an 18th-century church, its glebe house and parish school.

The two-storey former schoolhouse is aligned north-south on the corner of Aughnacavan Road and Donaghmore Road. Due to the sloping site, the ground floor of the east elevation is completely embanked in earth, with the entrance at first floor level. The building has a pitched natural slate roof with skews and a rendered chimney to each gable. Walls are lime-rendered rubble stone.

The front east elevation, embanked with earth at ground floor, features a small gabled porch at first floor centre. The porch has a pitched natural slate roof tied into the main roof but with lower eaves level, half-round rainwater goods and a Gothic-style bargeboard. The front of the porch has a tongue-and-groove sheeted door with bead mouldings and dressed granite threshold. In the apex above the door is a modern painted sign reading "DONAGHMORE / GLEBE NATIONAL SCHOOL". The north and south cheeks of the porch each have a narrow window—the north one is margin-paned with coloured glazing, and the south one is part infilled and plain. Either side of the porch is a single rectangular window opening laid horizontal, with a dressed granite cill and containing a pair of margin-paned timber casement windows in very poor condition.

The right north gable is blank, with its ground floor partially embanked with earth. The west elevation has three openings on each floor. The entrance is set to the right of centre with a tongue-and-groove sheeted door and dressed granite threshold. The remaining two ground floor openings are 6/2 sliding sashes (formerly 6/6) with dressed granite cills. The first floor has three similar window openings, equally spaced, all containing replacement aluminium-framed 6/6 sliding sashes in earlier timber sash boxes.

The left south gable is abutted by a single-storey lean-to outbuilding with a monopitched natural slate roof, walls as the main block and a doorway (door missing) on the south side.

The east boundary comprises a dwarf wall with pyramidal coped piers, a plain wrought iron gate and horizontal bar railings. The other elevations open onto a field, once the school yard and schoolmaster's garden.

A parish school is recorded as having existed here since 1725. The present building was erected by the parish in 1818 at a cost of £81 10s. 0d. The first schoolmaster, William Robinson, was employed and resident by 1820 on a salary of £30 per year. It appears in the 1835, 1859 and 1903 Ordnance Survey 6-inch maps variously as 'school house', 'infant school' and 'Glebe school'. The 1836 Valuation describes the building as measuring 31 feet by 15 feet by 14 feet, with a 7 feet 6 inches high basement; the ground on which it stands was donated by the rector of the parish.