SEELB Multi-purpose Centre, Downshire Road, Newry, Co Down, BT34 1EE

SEELB Multi-purpose Centre, Downshire Road, Newry

A Victorian red brick school building with blue engineering brick, terracotta and brick special detailing, erected by the Intermediate School Board to the design of W.J. Watson. First cited in 1895 Valuation records as "new school in progress" and subsequently listed as "Intermediate School" along with Master's House. The building was used for a time as Newry Grammar School.

The school faces west onto Downshire Road and is a pleasant Victorian exercise in intricate brickwork, though not sufficiently unusual or of high enough quality to justify special protection. It features steeply pitched, multi-gabled natural slate roofs with overhanging moulded barge boards and exposed rafter tails. Cast iron half-round rainwater goods run throughout. Three red brick chimneys are present, two with canted linked flues and brick special cornices.

The principal façade is divided into three entrance bays flanking large but unequal bays with a three-bay central section. The principal floor is raised above footpath level and reached by walkway to entrances at each side. A grassed area at the middle slopes down to lower level, bounded by a brick retaining wall with chamfered granite plinth to the street and sturdy cast iron railings. A lower garden area extends to the south side. Octagonal brick piers on square bases with pyramidal stone caps sit at either end of the façade, identical to those on the adjoining Masonic Hall.

The right side of the front façade is the former principal's residence, entered through a porch at principal floor level. The flat roof of this porch has a steeply pitched slated pinnacle topped by a cast iron finial abutting the rising wall behind. The street-facing wall contains a semi-elliptical arched opening with a pair of raised and fielded panel painted doors and fanlight. To the left is a large three-storey gable with a two-storey canted bay window, with two windows to the front and one to each side on both floors. Above it on the main gable are two windows and, above that, a small lancet in the gable apex. All windows have painted timber 1/1 sliding sash windows, with granite cills and roll moulded and stop end chamfered brick specials to the jambs. The canted bay is finished with a parapet containing four terracotta relief panels. Blue engineering brick special courses appear above and below windows to the gable above. The return wall of the bay to the south has a window at principal level beside the entrance porch and a modern casement in an enlarged window opening above, under a side gable. Above and to the left of the porch is a small segmental-headed 1/1 sliding sash with a half gable above, abutting the chimney gable of the south wing. This chimney has three canted brick stacks on a raised plinth with engineering brick detailing. A second chimney on the north side wall of the bay is similar.

The middle section of the façade comprises a two-storey block with three gabled bays, with two brick buttresses having ramped tops between its windows. At lower floor level are three openings: the left bay has double doors (painted timber, but not original), and the middle and right bays have pairs of segmental headed 1/1 sliding sash with splayed and stooled granite cills. A blue engineering brick string course runs at cill level. First floor windows are segmental headed 3/3 fixed lights with side opening casements in the outer right window. All are set within Gothic headed brick recesses with herringbone brick infill panels and central terracotta plaque above the openings, with cills as at lower floor and blue engineering brick detailing below each cill. A painted timber signboard hangs below the middle window.

The left bay projects to match the right bay, but is two storeys and lacks the canted bay window. It has segmental headed windows to the middle of each floor (4/4). The upper window is set in a Gothic arched panel detailed as those in the middle section. The right cheek has a 1/1 sash in a segmental headed opening to the ground floor. A flagpole rises over the gable. This bay has been extended in width as part of the north wing addition to form a door opening in a wider gable behind, set back from the front façade. The segmental headed opening contains a flush door and plain fanlight.

The left elevation to the north side comprises a long two-storey wing, also with natural slate roof and red brick but more simply detailed. It contains four gables at left, each with windows (one now with a modern escape door and fire escape), and at right, six window bays lighting a corridor with classrooms off. All windows have segmental headed openings with opening casements and granite cills. To the rear is a modern return with plant room. The right elevation to the south side retains the original building's side wing with gable and lower rear return, forming the south side of a central courtyard to the rear of the façade block. The rear wall of the front building forms the west side of this court with a modern door in a broad arch at lower level, an arched window above and a gabled return to the side. To the rear of the school stands the modern brown brick Windsor Hill Primary School.

The north wing demonstrates changes in educational attitudes, with extensive windows to the perimeter corridor and matching borrowed lights into classrooms, in contrast with the more cellular structure of the original block. The building is located within a conservation area.