Technical School, St Peters Street, Warrenpoint, Newry, Co Down, BT34 3NG

This is an attractive, two-storey school house prominently situated on a corner plot at the junction of St Peter’s Street and Thomas Street. Constructed between 1840 and 1859, the building displays a symmetrical design. It features a hipped roof covered in natural slate, with a flue pipe at each end of the ridge. Boxed eaves support metal rainwater goods, though some sections are now missing. The walls are finished with unpainted, lined cement render, incorporating a chamfered basecourse and a platband separating the ground and first floors. Stepped V-channelled stucco detailing marks the corners. Above the platband, the words “TECHNICAL SCHOOL” are painted on the front and right elevations. All windows have plain lugged stucco architraves and granite sills.

The principal northeast-facing elevation to St Peter’s Street is symmetrical, with a doorway at each end, now metal-sheeted and featuring granite thresholds. Above each doorway is a stucco plaque with faded lettering. Between the doorways are three evenly spaced 6/6 margin-paned sash windows, sheeted over at the lower section. Above these, on the first floor, are five evenly spaced 6/3 sash windows (un-margined) arranged in line with the ground floor openings, though slightly reduced in height and width.

The southeast-facing elevation features painted rubble stone at ground floor level. It contains a plain modern door to the left and a 1/1 sash window to the right. A corrugated metal canopy roof, supported by metal trusses, covers the first floor, which is rendered and blank. The rear southwest-facing elevation is blank and abuts the left gable of number 20 Thomas Street. The exposed section to the right is cement-rendered and blank, without eaves or gutters. A concrete block chimney rises from the centre of the wall head, apparently replacing an earlier chimney.

The northwest-facing elevation to Thomas Street mirrors the main elevation, with two windows on each floor.

The site was unoccupied in 1834, according to the Valuation town map. An Ordnance Survey town map from 1861 shows a National School on the site, which shares the same window arrangement as the present building and is almost certainly the original structure. The school closed in 1912, but reopened as a technical school around 1915, eventually becoming an annex to Newry Technical School. It has been vacant since its closure in the 1980s.