Survey Data
Reg No
15617004
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Previous Name
Saint Catherine's Convent
Original Use
School
In Use As
Day centre
Date
1885 - 1890
Coordinates
273887, 111054
Date Recorded
04/09/2007
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached three- or seven-bay single-storey national school with attic, built 1886, on a T-shaped plan centred on single-bay single-storey gabled projecting lower porch. Closed, ----. Renovated, 1993, to accommodate alternative use. Replacement pitched artificial slate roof centred on pitched (gabled) artificial slate roof (porch), ridge tiles, cut-granite "saddleback" coping to gables on cut-granite "Cavetto" kneelers with chimney stacks to apexes having stringcourses below corbelled stepped capping supporting terracotta or yellow terracotta octagonal pots, and uPVC rainwater goods on exposed timber rafters. Part repointed snecked "Old Red Sandstone" walls with cut-granite flush quoins to corners. Lancet central window opening with cut-granite block-and-start surround having chamfered reveals framing replacement fixed-pane uPVC window. Shouldered square-headed opposing door openings to "cheeks" with cut-granite block-and-start surrounds having chamfered reveals framing replacement timber boarded or tongue-and-groove timber panelled doors. Lancet window openings with cut-"Old Red Sandstone" block-and-start surrounds framing replacement uPVC casement windows. Paired lancet window openings to gables to side elevations with cut-"Old Red Sandstone" block-and-start surrounds having chamfered reveals framing replacement fixed-pane uPVC windows. Set in landscaped grounds shared with Saint Louis's Convent.
Appraisal
A national school representing an important component of the late nineteenth-century built heritage of Ramsgrange with the architectural value of the composition suggested by such attributes as the rectilinear plan form centred on an expressed porch; the slender profile of the openings underpinning a "medieval" Gothic theme; and the high pitched roofline: however, the introduction of replacement fittings to the openings has not had a beneficial impact on the external expression or integrity of a national school forming part of a neat self-contained group alongside an adjacent gate lodge (see 15617005) with the resulting ensemble making a pleasing visual statement a chapel village setting.