Survey Data
Reg No
11817042
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Original Use
School
In Use As
School
Date
1880 - 1885
Coordinates
272816, 212247
Date Recorded
12/02/2003
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached five-bay two-storey school, built 1884, on an almost symmetrical plan with single-bay two-storey gabled breakfront, single-bay two-storey recessed lower entrance bay to right (east) and single-bay two-storey return to rear to north. Renovated and refenestrated, c.2000. Hipped roofs with slate (gabled to breakfront). Red clay ridge tiles. Red brick chimney stack. Cut-stone coping to gable. Replacement uPVC rainwater goods, c.2000, on moulded red brick eaves course. Rendered walls. Ruled and lined. Unpainted. Cut-granite quoins to corners. Moulded red brick course to eaves. Square-headed window openings. Stone sills. Replacement uPVC sash windows, c.2000. Paired square-headed window openings to ground floor breakfront. Granite sills. Cut-granite colonette between openings with spear-headed finial. Shared hood moulding over. Replacement uPVC sash windows, c.2000. Paired square-headed window openings to first floor breakfront in pointed-arch recessed surround. Cut-granite sills. Cut-granite colonette between openings. Shouldered surrounds with decorating detailing to tympanum of arch having hood moulding over. Replacement uPVC sash windows, c.2000. Square-headed door opening. Replacement tongue-and-groove timber panelled door, c.2000, with overlight. Set back from road in own grounds. Tarmacadam yard to site. Gateway, c.1885, to east comprising pair of cut-stone piers with cast-iron double gates having rubble stone flanking boundary walls with sections of cast-iron railings over.
Appraisal
De La Salle Brothers’ School is a fine and attractive building that is of considerable social and historical significance as one of the earliest remaining educational facilities in the locality, having been built to replace an earlier school on Saint Brigid’s Square. The school retains much of its original from and character although recent (c.2000) replacement fittings, while alluding to the appearance of the original models, are composed of unsympathetic modern materials. The school presents a severe, Classically-balanced front (south) elevation of little extraneous ornamentation, although concession to decoration is evident in the breakfront that incorporates carved stone detailing that attests to the high quality of stone masonry and craftsmanship traditionally practised in Kildare town. The school is an attractive landmark in the locality, set back from the line of the road, and forms a neat group with De La Salle House to the west (11817032/KD-22-17-32).