Survey Data
Reg No
15601103
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Original Use
School
Date
1925 - 1935
Coordinates
315620, 159529
Date Recorded
07/06/2005
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Attached four-bay single-storey national school, built 1930, on a rectangular plan. Now in alternative use. Pitched fibre-cement slate roof with clay ridge tiles centred on truncated vent, rendered chimney stacks having stepped capping supporting terracotta pots, and cast-iron rainwater goods on rendered eaves retaining cast-iron downpipes. Roughcast walls on rendered "bas-relief" plinth with rendered flush strips to corners supporting rendered "bas-relief" band to eaves. Square-headed window openings with concrete sills, and rendered "bas-relief" surrounds framing four-over-four timber sash windows. Square-headed door opening (north) with cut-granite step threshold, and rendered "bas-relief" surround framing timber panelled door having overlight. Street fronted on a corner site with concrete footpath to front.
Appraisal
A national school representing an integral component of the twentieth-century built heritage of Gorey with the architectural value of the composition, one supplementing the Christian Brothers' National School (opened 1854; closed 1967) in Saint Michael's Place, suggested by such attributes as the compact rectilinear plan form. Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the restrained interior, thus upholding the character or integrity of a national school forming part of a self-contained group alongside the adjacent Christian Brothers' Monastery (see 15601104) with the resulting ensemble making a pleasing visual statement in Saint Michael's Road.