Former Kinghill National School, on junction of Hilltown Road and Kinghill Road, Rathfriland, Newry, Co Down, BT34 5EZ

Former Kinghill National School

This single-storey symmetrical schoolhouse stands derelict in a schoolyard on the south-west side of the Hilltown Road and Kinghill Road junction at Rathfriland. Although it retains some original architectural character and plan form, insufficient historic fabric remains to merit statutory protection. The building is associated with nearby Kinghill House and its gate lodge and gate screen.

The schoolhouse was constructed in 1834, as confirmed by a granite plaque on its front elevation. According to the 1836 Ordnance Survey Memoir for Clonduff Parish, it was established in 1835 as a plain oblong building, whitewashed and slated, financed by the National Education Board. It originally accommodated 230 pupils. The patron was William Wynstead Newell Barron Esq, who occupied the nearby Kinghill House. The school master was William Cotter and the school mistress Catherine McGlellan. The first valuation of circa 1838 records that the building cost about £200 to construct. The school closed in the early 1960s.

The front elevation faces north-west and contains a recessed granite plaque at centre, beneath which are four equally spaced window openings. Each contains a pair of 1/1 sliding sashes with exposed boxes and horns, dressed granite cills, and hood moulds with plain stops. The walls are lined with lime render and feature stepped quoins to the facade. A shallow hipped natural slate roof with terracotta ridges and deep overhanging eaves course (but no gutters) is aligned north-east to south-west.

The left elevation is blank and completely abutted at ground floor level by a single-storey porch with a lean-to natural slate roof and a raised parapet to its front wall. The porch walls match the main block; its front wall contains a single doorway (door now gone), and its left cheek has a single central window opening with granite cill. The rear wall of the porch has a door serving a tiny enclosed yard. A similar porch is positioned at the right gable, though its rear yard is roofed with corrugated asbestos.

The rear elevation of the main block is rendered and lacks an eaves course. It contains four window openings, all fitted with 2/2 sliding sashes with security bars. Small ruinous lean-to latrine blocks abut the ground floor on both left and right sides, each served by a door leading to the tiny yard behind its respective porch. The latrine blocks originally had lean-to roofs with small windows on their rear walls.

The small front schoolyard is enclosed from the road by spear-headed railings on a chamfered plinth with granite monolithic posts at left and right, and a second post framing a pedestrian gateway at the north-east end.